


A Spell of Snow and Sugar

by chewysugar



Series: Winter Wonderland [4]
Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Once Upon a Time (TV), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Schelkunchik | The Nutcracker
Genre: Adventure & Romance, BAMF Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Boys Kissing, Christmas, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Curses, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Inspired by Eros and Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Love, M/M, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27983772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: Determined to get Regina to accept Jack as his boyfriend, Henry Mills decides to place a minor curse on himself in hopes that True Love's Kiss will make Regina see reason. However, the curse is more daunting than Henry realizes--an ancient thing born of the wrath of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Now it falls to Jack Frost to enter The Land of Sweets and complete four tasks before the sun sets on Christmas Eve.Luckily he's going to get by with a little help from his friends.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood)/Henry Mills (Once Upon a Time), Prince Charming | David Nolan/Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard
Series: Winter Wonderland [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572364
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marvelatmymajesty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvelatmymajesty/gifts).



> It always bothers me a trifle when the projects I work the hardest on and like the most never get the attention I want them to. 
> 
> So I thought I'd write this little novella sequel to my Winter Wonderland series as a Christmas present for marvelatmymajesty, as well as anyone else who's read, kudoed and commented on those three stories.
> 
> This time last year I had no desire to write. Now it's the only gift I feel I can give.

Henry found it ludicrous that a place like Storybrooke—which was a product of magic—could be affected by something as mundane as a snowstorm. Yet here he was, trapped inside while winds howled against the house and snow danced frantically through the night air. Had he not been ensconced in a plushy armchair near a roaring fire with a steaming mug of peppermint tea, he’d have been on the borderline of brooding. As it was, he knew he had blessings in need of counting, and inclement weather was the least of his problems.

One such blessing was less than ten feet away seated on the sofa opposite Henry. His head was down, his ice blue eyes scanning the pages of a thick, young adult fantasy novel. Firelight and shadows played across his pale skin like the lights of the Aurora. His brows were knit in concentration, and going from the thin set of his lips, he wasn’t enjoying the words on the page.

Jack looked up suddenly, and cast Henry an accusing smirk.

“It’s very rude to stare,” he said.

Henry merely shrugged and innocently sipped his tea.

“I wasn’t staring,” he said. “I was just regarding. There’s a difference, you know. Staring is looking without breaking eye contact for no reason whatsoever—other than to be a creeper.”

Closing his book, Jack leaned forward. “And regarding?”

“Y’know…it’s looking but with purpose. You’re thinking about things. About how they look and, y’know…what they mean to you.” Heat stained his cheeks, and he quickly gulped more tea to drown the rising beast of embarrassment in his throat. When next he chanced to look Jack’s way, it was to find the beautiful boy hadn’t budged and was now, indeed, looking at Henry in a way that he could only deem to be regarding.

“Stop it!” Henry said, flapping a free hand in the air between them. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“I was just regarding you.” Again, that smirk—that frustrating, beguiling smirk.

“You’re not so cute.” Now Henry was leaning closer, closing the space, clinging to the very air Jack breathed like a flake of snow to an eyelash. He felt grateful to have chosen the refreshing taste of peppermint for his tea that night. Mint of any variety made for pleasurable kissing, and Henry’s hopes to kiss Jack were quickly flying on the wings of the wind.

“I’m not cute,” Jack whispered—his breath cool and refreshingly sweet. “I’m adorable, and everyone knows it.”

“Mhm.” Rendered incoherent, Henry closed his eyes. He anticipated the feeling of Jack’s lips against—soft but cold yet not at all uncomfortable—like the brush of a bright winter’s morning against fevered skin.

They were millimeters apart. Henry’s heart beat a white horse’s gallop under his ribs. His lips tingled. Soon, very soon, they would be kissing and then—

An invisible force sent Henry careening backwards, flat against the upholstery of his armchair. Eyes wide, he saw Jack likewise askew against the back of the sofa, his snow-silver hair all a mess.

“Alright!” Said a commanding voice. “Break it up, break it up! Party’s over!” His Mom stood in the space separating the sitting room from the dining nook. Bedecked in a form-fitting dress of holiday wine and frowning like a Nor’easter, she looked more the Evil Queen she’d once been than Henry cared to see her.

“Geannie,” said a placating voice from behind her. Henry’s Mother hurried from the kitchen carrying a glass of spiced eggnog. Not one to be caught dead in a dress, the forest green sweater she wore was nonetheless festive. “Geannie, we agreed that it was, in fact, alright.”

Regina’s eyes narrowed. Henry rather thought she’d have put the animated version of Cinderella’s step-mother to shame. Fortunately for him, her withering gaze was fixed on Jack.

Jack offered his best, little-boy grin in response. “I wasn’t going to get fresh,” he said. “Not with the house full of people.”

A mad desire to warn Jack seized Henry. But in lieu of uttering a curse, Regina merely contented herself with a “hmph,” of indignation before marching back into the kitchen.

Jack sighed. “You know, I think given a few decade, she might actually come to like me. What do you think about getting married in our forties, ‘Ree?”

Henry beamed at the use of Jack’s pet-name, but said soberly, “I think I could manage it, but I might go prematurely gray at this point.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Emma said, striding into the room and taking a swig of her eggnog. “She’s just very, very…very protective.”

“Jack’s been here for months now,” Henry said. Even to his own ears he sounded too petulant, but it couldn’t be helped. Jack had come into his life the previous Christmas. They’d spent weeks that winter sneaking around, meeting in secret and doing their utmost to hide their budding love from everyone in Storybrooke.

Henry chalked the whole discovery up to his forgetting just who the residences of the town were. Most small towns had to worry about meddlesome biddies spilling the tea on anyone who got a tattoo. Storybrooke laid claim to citizens who could actually use spilled tea to predict the future.

Despite their best efforts, Jack and Henry had been found out just before the spring thaw. And all because Pongo had run away and stumbled upon their meeting place in the woods.

“I know,” Emma said. “Ex-convict here, remember? I know a thing or two about sneaking around and overbearing authority figures.”

From the kitchen—and above the sounds of a lively holiday tune—came Regina’s hollered, “ _I am not overbearing_!”

Henry, Jack and Emma winced.

“The point is,” Emma went on, “you just have to give her a little more time. It doesn’t help that you’re…” Emma waved her hand airily in Jack’s direction. “Magical.”

“Thank you,” Jack said, preening like a pleased peacock.

“That’s racist,” Henry pointed out, sipping his tea once more. “And hypocritical. I’m no psychologist, but I think my Mom might be suffering from internalized magicphobia.”

“How can you say that if you’re not a psychologist, ‘Ree?”

Henry licked his lips. “With my mouth. I’ll show you what else I can do with it later.”

Emma’s laugh was loud, but not loud enough to drown a scandalized gasp from the kitchen. Frowning, Emma turned around on her seat and said, “Geannie, if you so much as step foot in here and it’s not with a tray of cocktail shrimp, your ass is mine.”

Hook chose that moment to flounce into the room from the hallway. He’d been browsing Regina’s library, disliking the noise and chaos of the big holiday to-do. Grinning, he sat next to Emma and said, “What’s all this about asses, love?”

Emma wrinkled her nose. “Just talking about whose belong to whom.”

“Well, we all know to whom yours belongs--

“Okay,” Henry said, “that’s quite enough, thanks, Mom.”

He stared into the fire. All around him the holidays swung from the rafters. His Mom had elected to host a party that night, and the house was filled with friends from all over town. The boy he loved was currently seated opposite him, and yet it felt oddly empty. More than anything—more than any wish on his list—he wanted his Mom to approve of his relationship with Jack.

“Henry.”

Jack’s voice roused Henry from his reverie. The cockiness had gone out him. Beneath the veneer of ice and winter were depths as cold and dark as the Atlantic. The things Jack had seen and done…it only made Henry love him more. At times like this, Henry saw that tragedy come to the surface, and he wanted nothing more than to hide Jack from all the trauma he’d ever experienced.

Henry gave a quick stab at a smile. “I’m okay, baby. Really.”

“Aww.” And who to Henry’s wandering eyes should appear but his grandparents and baby Neal. “He called him ‘baby.’ I don’t think my heart can take it.”

“Last time I checked,” Henry said, “it was Christmas. Not ‘Embarrass the Seventeen-Year-Old Day.’”

“We could make it a new thing,” Hook said.

“Come on, Henry,” David said, taking a seat next to his wife at the nearby dining room table. “You know your grandmother is a hopeless romantic.”

“Excuse me,” Mary Margaret said, “I happen to think of myself as an assertive romantic. I go and get and what I want when it comes to love. And so should everyone else.”

Henry quite desperately wanted to say something to the effect of “Yes, well, there’s a wicked witch in the kitchen I’d have to conquer for that,” but stopped himself for two very good reasons. Firstly, because he loved his Mom despite all her flaws; and secondly, his grandmother’s words had kindled the fire of an idea in the back of his mind. 

The room around him seemed to recede into the background. Voices, crackling fire and Kelly Clarkson’s Christmas playlist all become garbled messes of white noise. He stared at Jack, now sending small snowflakes through the air for baby Neal to clutch at with his tiny little fists. Jack’s whole face was aglow with delight at entertaining a child, and Henry’s heart nearly burst with love.

Still, he couldn’t shake the idea from his mind.

It was an awful idea.

A wonderful, awful idea, and he needed help to do it and he needed to do it soon.

He came back to reality with a snap when Regina arrived.

“Alright everyone,” she said, laying a silver tray on the dining room table. “Cocktail shrimp.” She cast one swift glance of disdain Jack’s way, and stood back as the guests fell too.

Henry remained seated, watching as the guests gathered around the table. So consumed to consume were they that none noticed his absence. All the better for his purpose. He watched his Mom, the plan rising and falling in his mind like ever descending torrents of blown snow.

It was really a pity that it had to come to this, he thought. But really, Regina had left him no choice.

After the party, the guests were invited to stay in the guest bedrooms—save for the one Jack had occupied for the last several weeks. Henry supposed another reason for Regina’s reticence regarding Jack was that he was yet another body in her home.

David and Mary Margaret both hugged him goodnight. But before he let go, Henry whispered to them, “I need your help with something. Meet me in the garage after everyone else has gone to bed.”

They both cast him looks of surprise—David looking rather unsure—but didn’t offer protest.

Emma and Hook bid him goodnight—Emma somewhat tipsily due to the copious amounts of eggnog she’d drank.

Henry watched them go from his spot on the stairs, hardly containing his nerves. His plan was absurd and reckless—and could potentially blow everything up—but he had to try.

“You’re about to swallow your chin.”

Henry turned to find Jack standing at the bottom of the stairs, his expression rueful but amused.

“Ah good,” Henry said, “you’re alive. I was worried she might have poisoned the horseradish.”

“I thought apples were more her territory.”

“She likes to dabble.”

Jack climbed the stairs until he and Henry were level on the landing. “Are you alright, ‘Ree? I know it wasn’t a scene from a Hallmark movie, but it was still a pleasant shindig.”

“Shindig? Hallmark movie? You’ve only been among us mere mortals a year and you’re already picking up the lingo.”

“I’ve been among mere mortals for hundreds and hundreds of years.” He stood close—so close that Henry could feel the coolness of his body. The house settled for the night, his brain filled with adrenaline, Henry let the reins on his control slip.

With an impulsive step forward, he crushed his lips against Jack’s. Despite Jack’s slight frame, he had a solid handful of years on Henry, and was also a being of immense and ancient power. Not breaking the sweet contact, he walked Henry backwards, pinning him against the wall.

Henry gasped, feeling the taste of Jack in his mouth. His fingers curled into the front of Jack’s pale blue sweater, pulling him closer—needing him nearer. His heat and Jack’s cold collided like a storm front, sweeping both away as they kissed and kissed.

This time magic didn’t break the contact.

Jack did. He pulled back with a shuddering gasp. His eyes were brighter than a December sky.

“Oh god,” Henry sighed.

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

“We could always—

“No, Henry. You’ve still got a few weeks until your birthday. Then we can always. And hopefully for the rest of time.”

Henry sighed. Part of him—the part anchored by hormones—wanted to rage and rant at the injustice of it all. But it had been important to Jack that they never cross certain lines, and he wasn’t going to test those bounds now.

Not over the holidays, and not when he had something more important to deal with.

Jack tilted Henry’s chin with the back of his knuckle.

“Sleep well, sweet prince,” he said. “I’ll dream of you.”

“See that,” Henry said, far too breathless for his own peace of mind, “isn’t exactly helping this abstinence vow.”

“Hey, you’re at perfect liberty to dream of me too. Nobody said the dreams had to Rankin and Bass levels of family friendly.” He winked—actually winked—and then alighted up the staircase.

Henry shook his head, and then retired to his own room.

The storm continued to howl outside, rattling the windows of his bedroom. Henry lay in the dark, looking at the ceiling and counting down the minutes. His Mom liked to stay awake in her office until a little before midnight. Henry waited until the hour came, and still he didn’t so much as roll over until fifteen minutes more had gone by. At half-past the hour, he slipped the covers off, and tiptoed out of his bedroom. He’d slept in his clothes, the better to suit his endeavor. Around him the house lay still and silent, but beyond its walls the wind wailed with a vengeance.

Senses on alert, Henry stole down the staircase. The tick-tock tick-tock of the grandfather clock beat in staccato rhythm with his heart. It was an ugly clock, and he'd always thought so. It was a rather extraordinary clock—tall, with only enough space for a bird to perch between its ornate top and the ceiling. Carved from black walnut, with detailed mice of metal welded into its sides, no one could deny it was a beautiful piece. Yet there was something mildly foreboding about it. The pendulum in its glass throat swung to and fro behind a throat encased in glass ever so slightly frosted. Works, cogs and gears turned just behind a face painted with golden Roman numerals.

Right now it seemed like a sentry with dominion over the living room.

Unafraid of his Mom as he was, Henry still didn’t wish to incur her wrath, least of all under present circumstances.

He made it to the ground floor, expecting the master bedroom door to burst open with each step. But not so much as a mouse stirred.

Emboldened by his success, Henry hurried to the back door, and slipped his boots on. He hoped his contacts had listened, and not chickened out. Putting the plan into action was feasible alone, but he’d rather have help from those he loved and trusted.

Keeping his head bent against the wind and blowing snow, Henry made the treacherous trek across the yard to the garden shed. A line of orange light below the door told him that there were, in fact, people inside.

He all but collapsed through the door, and struggled to close it against the raging winter storm. Turning, he saw his grandparents, both nonplussed and wearing their winter jackets. A camping lantern stood on the work shelf at David’s back, casting the room in a gentle, white glow.

“Not a fit night out for person or beast,” Henry gasped, brushing snow off his head.

“No,” Mary Margaret said, “it really isn’t. So why bother dragging us out here in the first place?”

“And why just us?” David asked. “What about your moms, or Jack?”

“It’s about them that I need your help,” Henry said. Now he was here, he felt as if he the best course of action would be to abandon ship. This plan was chaotic, not to mention unfair to those left out of the loop. But he needed to find a bridge between his Mom and Jack, or the rest of his life would be spent trying to keep unnecessary peace.

“I’ve got a new operation,” Henry said, not looking his grandparents in the eye. “It’s going to sound really crazy, and you’re not going to want to do it…”

“Of course we will,” Mary Margaret said at once. “We’ll help you with anything you want, Henry. You know that.”

“I know.” Henry elected to stare at a pile of tote boxes stuffed in the corner. “I know you would. But like I said: you might find this a little hard to take just because it’s going to involve leaving a lot of people in the dark.”

No one spoke for a moment. Henry could tell they were both mulling over the weight of his words. He supposed they could refuse. He’d still maintain his course of action, only without help and with more people left potentially hurt.

“It’s about Jack, then,” David said. “And Regina, too?”

Henry nodded. “She’ll never let him in.”

David began to say, “You don’t know that,” but Mary Margaret cut him off.

“You’re right.”

Henry glanced at his grandparents. Mary Margaret regarded David with a wife’s amused skepticism.

“You don’t know her like I do,” she said. “Although you know she can hold grudges like nobody’s business. Jack’s a threat in her mind, and she’s only tolerating him for Henry’s sake—and even then, just barely.” She sighed. “I suppose she’s just waiting for the first sign of trouble to try and drive a wedge between them. Not because she doesn’t love you,” she added quickly for Henry’s benefit. “It’s because she loves you too much. It’s always been her way—she’s got a love in her heart that has brought kingdoms to ruin.”

A lump came to Henry’s throat. He coughed, and kicked at the brickwork ground with his boot. “I just want her to accept him. I know I’m not exactly old and wise—but you weren’t that much older than me when you fell in love. And you knew it when you found each other, didn’t you?”

David nodded. “Of course we did.”

“I want what you have. What Mom has with Hook.” Sometimes he wanted Jack so much he was fearful of losing his grip because of it.

“You will,” Mary Margaret said. “Now, what did you bring us out here for to discuss?”

Henry inhaled, drawing as much energy as he could from thin, frosty air.

Looking both of his grandparents in the eye, he said, “I’m going to get someone to put a curse on me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks ever so for the warm response to this so far :)

Morning brought no relief from the snow. Though the wind had let up to bearable degrees, flakes continued to spiral from the sky in cascading petals of cold ivory. People were out and about on the streets of Storybrooke, shoveling sidewalks and apply liberal amounts of salt.

Henry, having tossed and turned all the night through before setting out at morning’s first light, scarcely noticed all the familiar faces. Somehow he’d managed to get through to David and Mary Margaret the previous night—although with no undue lack of reservation from the both of them.

Nonetheless, they were on his side. Their loyalty would prove important, not to mention crucial to his plan going off as smoothly as possible.

“Not anything crazy,” he’d told them. “Not the kind of curse Mom put on The Enchanted Forest or anything like that. Just something simple—something easy to overcome with True Love’s Kiss.”

David had gotten right to the root of the matter. “Because if he saves you with it, your Mom will have no choice but to realize she can’t get rid of him.”

“Not that she might not try,” Mary Margaret had said. “But I guess it’s worth a shot. But Henry—this is taking an awful amount of risk. I don’t suppose you can’t just talk things over with your Mom?”

Oh, but I’ve tried, Henry thought as he hurried past shop windows. And he had. He’d talked himself blue in the face. He’d argued, bargained and even asserted his love for Jack, and every time, his Mom had come back with something placating.

“ _We’ll see about that, Henry…don’t take that tone with me, young man…you’re making a big fuss out of nothing…you’re too young to know what you want_ …”

Because his family tree was just brimming with fruit which had waited for maturation before breeding. His grandparents, his mother…even his great-grandfather had clung to youth like a shadow. As for Regina, she’d fallen so deeply in love with that farm boy it had driven her to darkness.

Just a small curse…nothing devastating…and since asking his Mom to help defeated the purpose, he had to turn to the other end of the gene pool.

He walked over icy patches and around snowdrifts to the edge of town. Brownstones gave way to trees laden with snow and barbed wire fences buried to the necks.

The farmhouse sat quite quaint and welcoming at the edge of fields white as a holiday card. Steeling his resolve, Henry hurried down a half-hidden driveway, snow up to his ankles. He had to be quick about this—leaving Jack home alone with his Mom made him feel as if he were committing the worst kind of betrayal.

He knocked, and then waited for several moments. When nobody answered, he knocked again, looking over his shoulder at the snowy fields. The fall was so dense that the horizon across the other side lay hidden behind clouds and flurries.

Feeling quite apprehensive and just the slightest bit annoyed, Henry hammered on the door again.

A split-second later, the door was opened by a shapely redhead with an expression suggesting she’d just woken up.

Henry cleared his throat.

“S-sorry, Auntie Z,” he said. “I, uh, just…I wanted…”

Zelena’s eyes went wide, as if she’d only just registered who it was who’d come a-caroling.

“Henry? What the hell are you doing here in this weather? And this side of ten in the morning?”

There was no use in beating around the holly bush.

In a rush, Henry said, “I need you to curse me so the boy I love can give me True Love’s Kiss and my Mom can stop treating him like a skunk that wandered in through the pet door.”

Several seconds elapsed in which Zelena continued to stare at Henry with an expression as lively as printer paper.

“Come on in,” she said, standing aside. “I’ve got coffee on if you partake.”

The blood between Regina and Zelena had turned from sour to merely bland over the last year and a bit. While they didn’t actively seek each other’s company, neither seemed inclined to wage open warfare against one another, and in fact, were known to engage in pleasantries should the bump into each other during a grocery run. As such, Henry had never been inside his estranged aunt’s home, and was surprised at how homely it was.

A festive tablecloth lay over a square kitchen table with a bowl of pomegranates oranges in pride of place. Down one hallway, Henry glimpsed a large Christmas tree set near a brick heart adorned with paper chains and garland.

“Robin’s still sleeping,” Zelena said, bustling around her kitchen. “So we’ll have to make this a quick visit. That, and I’m sure the entire town would burn me at the stake if the knew you were here.”

“I came here of my own free will,” Henry said, sinking onto a chair.

Zelena snorted as she rummaged for a ceramic mug. “As if that would stop the lot of them. I’m the wicked witch, remember? Do you take cream and sugar? I’ve got some of that sickeningly sweet peppermint coffee creamer if that suits you.”

Henry perked up. Something so enriched with high-fructose corn syrup would never make it past his Mom’s grocery list. Another reason she couldn’t stand Jack—the boy had a sweet tooth to shame a toddler.

“Coffee creamer sounds great, Auntie Z.”

“Auntie Z,” Zelena repeated, not altogether unkindly. “Never thought I’d live to see the day…”

A moment later they were sitting across from one another, sipping sweet, fragrant coffee. After the chill outside, Henry felt rather grateful fro the soothing warmth spreading through his body.

“Right,” Zelena said, all traces of earlier tiredness abandoned. “What sort of curse do you want?”

Henry blinked. “Just like that? Aren’t you going to tell me I should just talk it out with my Mom?”

“And miss the chance to ruffle my prissy big sister’s pristine feathers? Assuming you’re not looking for anything fatal—

“No! Nothing like that.” Henry quickly checked the inside of the coffee mug.

Zelena rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve no quarrel with you or anyone else. You’re family. Family doesn’t poison one another—or so I’ve been told.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Besides, you’re old enough to know. This boy loves you, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.” Henry smiled softly. “I know he does. When I’m with him—

“I’m going to stop you there, love.” His aunt quirked a smile. “A wee bit too early in the AM to be hearing something so nauseating.”

“Right.” Henry rubbed one foot with the other beneath the table. “So—you can do it, then? I’ll pay you, too. I’ve got enough money saved up from—

Zelena actually laughed, and it sounded nothing like the cackle Henry had anticipated. “Payment? You’re my darling nephew, Henry. It’s quite pleasant to know I can forge some kind of tie with you—not that I’m unhappy being here with your cousin. Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

“Really?”

“Really really.”

Henry grinned. “Well…thanks, Auntie Z. I appreciate it.”

A sudden sound of fussy infant broke what had been an otherwise heartwarming moment. Zelena instantly set her coffee down and alighted form the table. Henry heard her move with due haste through the rest of the house and up the stairs. A moment later, she returned the kitchen carrying a child no older than two. The girl—her hair a fiery shade of red—looked from her mother to the newcomer, and ceased crying almost at once.

“Robin,” Henry said, feeling completely stupid for never having thought about his cousin at all since she’d been born.

“Well, what do you know?” Zelena said. “She likes you.” And, without further prompting, she handed Robin to Henry. Henry held the baby like a live bomb, staring at her as if fearful that looking elsewhere would cause catastrophic detonation. For her part, Robin flashed a grin of only a few teeth, and began babbling happily.

“Her first real Christmas,” Zelena sighed, pouring apple juice into a Sippy cup. “I’ve never understood why parents make such a fuss about the first one. Babies can’t comprehend birthdays or holidays.”

She took Robin from Henry, who handed her over with a great amount of relief. Zelena sat Robin on her lap, stroking her hair as she drank her apple juice in delight.

“So this curse,” Zelena went on as if nothing had interrupted them. “It’s going to have to be quest-like in nature. Not too dangerous or flashy—we mustn’t have anymore chernobogs ruining the Ice Festival.” She drummed a free hand on the tabletop. Her eyes traveled from the pomegranates in the fruit bowl to something just over Henry’s shoulder.

A smile spread over her face, and Henry had a brief mental flash of his aunt as the Wicked Witch she’d once been. Glancing backwards, Henry spied a nutcracker wedged onto the windowsill.

Lips pressed against the side of Robin’s head, Zelena said, “Be a good girl today. Mama has to help your cousin with his boy troubles."


	3. Chapter 3

Jack woke to a house absent of Henry, and wished he’d just stayed in bed. Though he didn’t wish to completely attach himself to the boy he loved, facing Regina without back-up wasn’t his idea of a jolly holiday.

Not even the presence of the party guests helped. Emma sat at the kitchen island with her sunglasses on, her head resting on her hand. Hook sat next to her, amused by the evident hangover she nursed from the night before. Mary Margaret and David were feeding Neal breakfast at the table nearest the window, both chipper and radiant with joy as befitting a fairy tale prince and princess.

It shouldn’t have struck Jack as all that odd that fairy tales had a life all their own. He, who’d battled the boogeyman and considered himself a friend of Santa Claus, ought to have taken it in stride that the fireside stories his family had told him as a child were contained the seed of truth—and then some. But even these many months on, he still felt something of a fanboy for being around the likes of Snow White and Captain Hook—to say nothing of the fact that his beloved’s adoptive mother was the Evil Queen.

Lo and behold, there stood Regina near the kitchen island, dressed as if she were bound for a re-election. A brief flicker of a glance in his direction was the only sign she gave to indicate Jack’s presence.

“Morning,” Jack said.

“Good morning, Jack!” Mary Margaret beamed at him. “There’s food if you want it, and some orange juice leftover.”

Regina hastened to pour a glass of orange juice, emptying the tall glass pitcher on the island. She drank the entire think in several loud gulps, smacked her lips and said, “No, there isn’t, actually.”

Mary Margaret goggled at Regina, but seemed to overcome by disbelief at her rudeness to find something to say.

“It’s all good,” Jack said. “Water is the lifeblood of all living things.” Unbidden, an ancient memory slammed into him with the force of a tidal wave. He saw light fading fast, and felt cold like that which he could conjure with a flick of the wrist pressing into his skin. Loss consumed him—the loss of warmth and life and love. The skin on the back of his hand itched with a need to grasp onto someone who would never touch him again.

Rest, he told himself. His vision cleared. He was, once more, in Regina’s kitchen. Five pairs of eyes were fixed on him in consternation—even Regina, haughty as she was, looked somewhat off-put.

“What?” Jack looked round, and winced. Ice covered the floor behind him, creeping along the baseboards of the wall and up the wainscoting. Even as he stared, silvery continued to spread like a slick of oil towards the ceiling.

“Never mind,” Jack said with a frown. The ice immediately cracked and shattered in a dust of snowy flakes. Luckily for Regina’s floor, the flakes vanished before they were anywhere near the ground.

“Sorry about that,” Jack said to the room at large. “I was, uh…remembering something I’d rather forget.” He swiped a muffin from the kitchen island. As Regina did not immediately tear his tongue out through his teeth, he considered himself welcome to the offered food.

“Are you certain you’re not related to Elsa?” Regina asked, regarding him warily.

“No,” Jack said, mouth full of muffin. “From what you’ve told me about her she sounds like a real delight, though.”

“I still don’t know…” Regina’s tightened her lips.

“Geannie,” Emma groaned. “Let it go. Jack’s been here long enough and he’s not going anywhere. At least until Henry decides to fly the coop and they get their own place together.”

The empty glass in Regina’s hands shattered as she squeezed it a touch too hard. Baby Neal began to fuss, and Mary Margaret through her former step-mother a reproachful scowl.

“For crying out loud,” Regina hissed. She snapped her fingers and the broken glass returned to its former vessel. “All these upheavals are making me gray.”

Jack swallowed his muffin, wildly wishing Henry were around. He’d done as much to get into Regina’s good graces, and lo, all these months later, she still treated him like vermin. There were times—mostly when he didn’t have Henry around to bolster him—when he felt completely crushed by Regina’s venomous dislike. Jack had gone hundreds and hundreds of years alone—walking unseen among the children of the world, never being welcomed or allowed to join in their fun.

Even with most of Storybrooke having welcomed him into the fold, he still was barely tolerated by Regina—the one person whose approval he wanted more than anything.

Regina glanced at the ceiling. “It’s nearly nine-thirty,” she said, almost to herself. “That boy might be on winter break, but I’m not running a hotel service.”

“I’ll get him,” Jack said quickly, making to turn. He bumped into an invisible wall, and blinked away the mild pain.

Regina strode imperiously past and said, “I will be doing the getting, if it’s all the same to you.” She made it only as far as the kitchen door before she, too, was brought up short by an unseen force field.

“Emma!” She turned in disbelief to the woman in question. It was Hook, however, he stood—likely due to his wife’s current state of post-intoxication. “This is my house, Swan!” Regina said. “You can’t just go putting up barriers!”

Emma smiled. “Should have that of that before you taught me how to use magic.”

Hook swaggered by, giving Regina a curt nod. “Don’t worry, mate. I’ll give the lad the same what for as you.”

Muttering darkly, Regina returned to her spot by the island. She cast Jack a swift, scathing glare—as if he were somehow responsible for Emma’s magical barrier. Jack, for his part, simply picked at the berries on his muffin. Perhaps if he tried buttering Regina up—but then, he’d already attempted that some time around Easter. His gift of a gentle snowfall hadn’t gone over well. But how, Jack had asked himself, was he to know that Regina’s apple tree saplings were highly fragile and susceptible to cold?

Or maybe, said a voice black as pitch in his ear, you could give her the ultimate gift of disappearing. Cold stole through him, beating from his heart and filling his bloodstream.

Henry, he thought, you better wake your butt up soon…

A series of thunderous footsteps on the staircase made everyone in the kitchen jump. Regina and Emma both looked at each other, and Emma removed her sunglasses. Jack had been around enough mothers to decipher the look exchanged between them—knowledge that something was wrong. Very wrong.

Hook entered the kitchen a moment later, face grave.

“Henry’s gone,” he said. “I looked everywhere in his room, and there wasn’t a trace of him.”

“Maybe he’s in the bathroom?” Emma said. “He is a teenage boy after all.”

“Trust me, love, I checked, but no dice.”

Jack’s heart beat with the ice of midwinter. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed David and Mary Margaret had gone pale as the arctic.

Regina rounded on Jack. “Alright, Winter Boy. What have you done with my son?”

“Regina!” Emma glared at the other woman. “Would you get a grip? Why would Jack be responsible?”

“Why not? We barely know a thing about him. For all any of us know, he could have—

“No,” Emma said shortly. “You barely know a thing about him. The rest of us have actually had the decency to get to know him since he came into Henry’s life, and trust me—he’s not the type to go making people up and disappear.” She stared Jack down with the fierce protection of a mother that Jack quailed.

Nevertheless, he refused to be cowed be Regina in this time of crisis.

“I would never hurt Henry,” he said, staring her directly in her stormy eyes.

Jack knew full well that Regina would have loved nothing more than to carry on the conversation. The rigid set of her spine made him fear she planned to throttle him then and there.

“Okay,” David got to his feet, handing Neal to his wife. “Okay, he’s not here. The best thing to do is actually go and find him. Mary Margaret, you stay here with Neal—

“This one’s staying behind too,” Regina said, nodding at Jack. “And Swan, you can stay behind to watch him. Guy-liner and Prince Charming can help me search.”

Jack bristled. “I can cover more ground. Disappear on the wind. If Henry’s gone anyway, I’ll find him faster than anyone.”

“You don’t understand,” Regina said. “I wasn’t asking for suggestions.” With that, she stormed away. Jack, refusing to kowtow, followed, Hook, Emma and David close behind. Regina reached the front door, wrenched it open…and nearly bowled over a stunned Henry, he jumped backwards in alarm.

“Wow!” He said, half-laughing. “Talk about good timing.”

Relief filled Jack’s chest like warm drink. He planned to stand back—to let Regina fold Henry into her arms the way he could tell she wanted to do. But Henry walked right by his Mom, and gave Jack a quick peck on the cheek.

“Sorry for the fright, babe,” he said cheerily—too cheerily.

“Where the hell were you?” Whether Henry’s choosing to ignore Regina stung her was unfathomable. Regina followed her son into the living room, cheeks red from cold and worry.

“I went for a walk,” Henry said with a shrug. “And then I stopped in at Granny’s. Her hot peppermint cocoa—it was like heroin. Or, well, I mean—what I imagine heroin would be like because I would never ever do it and I’m going to shut up now.”

He’s voice remained casual. Pink bloomed across his cheeks, although Jack supposed that might have been from the cold. Still, something in Henry’s manner reminded Jack of himself—his penchant for hiding things, playing coy in the face of some practical joke or other.

Regina, likewise, didn’t appear at all mollified. She stared at her son with imperious dignity. After a moment, she shook her head and returned to the kitchen, her heels tapping on the hardwood floor like pellets of frozen rain on marble.

Deciding to be more relieved than suspicious, Jack strode to the couch, but did not sit next to Henry. Resting a hand on Henry’s shoulder, Jack said, “’Ree…if there was something going on with you, you’d tell me, right?”

“Of course,” Henry said. But his eyes were fixed elsewhere—focused on the grandfather clock at the opposite end of the room.

Jack had never quite liked the clock. Henry’s determination to stare the thing into oblivion made Jack’s unease crystallize into something prickly and dense.

“’Ree,” he said again, not really knowing where we wished his words to lead him. 

“It’s fine, Jack.” Henry gazed at him, his eyes warm and yearning to be understood. “Just promise me something.”

Jack swallowed, not knowing if he wanted to do anything of the kind, yet unable to deny Henry anything.

“What?”

“Meet me here a few minutes before midnight?”

Visions of darkness spreading over unsuspecting children swam before Jack’s eyes. He heard a voice—sibilant and shadowy whisper seductive promises of working together.

All Jack could muster was a whispered, “Of course…anything.” How could he refuse Henry a thing he asked for, especially this close to Christmas?


	4. Chapter 4

With the crisis of the missing boy averted, Regina’s home gradually cleared of its festive guests throughout the day. Emma and Hook departed near noon, making Henry promise to call them on Christmas Day. Mary Margaret and David said their farewells shortly after.

“Take care,” Mary Margaret said to Jack. They way she watched him, one would have believed Jack to be on death’s door, or at the very least, on his way to some battle or other.

Jack blinked. “Well, thanks Mary Margaret. You too.” He sent another flurry of snowflakes Neal’s way, and smiled warmly as the baby attempted to grasp them in his fat little fists.

She gave come one last look of consternation before departing.

Jack could have crawled out of his own skin waiting for the hours to while by. The best that could be said was Regina’s relative absence. She retreated to her study before the guests left, and didn’t leave all day—not even during dinner, which Jack and Henry helped themselves to.

As obdurate as his Mom was, Henry remained relatively aloof all day long.

It drove Jack nearly mad, but more than that—it hurt to know the boy he loved wasn’t being forthcoming. Why all the secrecy? Least of all when he knew how stung Jack was by Regina’s lack of approval.

“Are you sure you won’t tell me what’s going on?” Jack asked. It was nearly eleven-thirty at night, and they were both gathered near the fireplace. He’d tried all day to avoid broaching the subject, but his nerves couldn’t take it.

“You’ll know soon,” Henry said.

Jack glowered at the flames. Henry was nestled at his feet, perfectly content. How he could be so calm, Jack did not know.

All he knew was that he didn’t appreciate being left in the dark at all.

“I won’t rat you out,” Jack said. “I just thought after everything maybe you’d trust me a little bit more.”

“I do trust you,” Henry said, turning round to stare at him.

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Because if I do you’ll talk me down.”

Jack got to his feet, fuming. “Bad enough I’m not welcome here,” he said, pacing to and fro. “Now you won’t even be honest with me because you’re afraid. Did you know she thought I had something to do with you not being here this morning? She accused me, Henry.”

“Jack.” Henry stood. He watched Jack with something like sadness. “It’s for the best.”

“No!” Jack rounded on him. “You don’t keep secrets when you love somebody.”

Henry went very still. The fire at his back put his front in darkness, but Jack could see his eyes—bright pinpricks among the sea of shadows.

Jack almost wished he could take his words back. But he had a right to expect something as courteous as trust from this relationship. He would know unimaginable pain if Henry couldn’t meet that expectation—but he would walk if it was necessary. He’d been lonely before this. What were a few more centuries?

A log crackled. The grandfather clock continued to tick towards the midnight hour—the hour when Henry had asked Jack to be present.

“Okay,” Henry said, nodding his head. “You’re right. I should be open, but it’s too late to take it back anyway.”

Jack’s throat went tight with apprehension. “Henry…what did you do?”

“It’s for us, baby.” He took Jack’s hands in his, voice shaking. “To make her see. It’s nothing serious, really. She made sure of that.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

_Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock_ …it was nearly midnight.

“I cursed myself,” Henry said, and he actually smiled. Frigid cold spilled from Jack’s heart. The air around him began to freeze as his trepidation seeped into the ether.

“You…you what?”

“Not me. I didn’t do it myself. But it’s nothing, nothing at all. You’ll be able to break it with True Love’s Kiss.” Tears slid down Henry’s cheeks, but he continued to smile, eternally optimistic and heartbreaking. “Then she’ll see. My Mom will finally see that you and me—that this— “He squeezed Jack’s hand— “was all meant to be.”

“Oh god…” Jack pulled Henry close, crushing him against his body. The perfect idiot! How could he have done something so foolish? Out of all possible options, this was so irresponsible, so naïve—so perfectly Henry, who believed hope could grow a forest from the crack earth of a desert.

For a long while they simply stood there, hugging each other while the fire burned to cinders in the hearth.

Then the clock tolled the hour.

_Gong…_

Henry let go of Jack and turned towards the grandfather clock.

“It’s time,” he said, walking towards the towering timepiece.

_Gong…_

“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “You have to take it back.” Was it just his imagination, or were the shadows around the grandfather clock growing deeper?

_Gong…_

“It’s too late,” Henry said. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He faced Jack, that hapless smile still painted over his sorrow. “Don’t worry. All you have to do is kiss me.”

Jack grabbed Henry by the side of his face and kissed him for all he was worth. He relished the warmth, the sweet petals of Henry’s lips.

_Gong…_

Glass suddenly shattered. Jack and Henry broke apart, staring at the throat of the clock. The front pane had broken into hundreds of diamond pieces and fallen to the floor. The mice, once carved images in the dark wood, began to skitter along the body down towards the ground. They separated from their former resting place, as if they’d always been real mice and had stayed a part of the clock out of choice.

_Gong…_

Jack instinctively pulled Henry behind him. The mice—four of them—began to grow. The twisted and turn, like gnarled metallic trees in fast-forward. Firelight gleamed on their silver skins, making them look liquid and lethal.

_Gong…_

Grimacing, Jack sent a shard of ice at the things now standing a solid six feet tall before he and Henry. They were half-human half-mice, their limbs hulking and strong. Bits of clockwork connected their joints and fingers.

Jack’s icy projectile merely bounced off the broad belly of one of the sentries. It turned its head, pinioning him with eyes unseeing.

_Gong…_

Henry slipped from Jack’s grasp. As one and at once, all four Footmen strode forwards, two seizing him by one arm each.

“NO!” Jack roared. Ice and snow flew from his hands as he tried to stop the soldiers, but they proved impervious. Snarling, Jack covered the floor before the grandfather clock—now swollen to the size of a wardrobe. The mice-men slipped, but did not fall.

“HENRY!” Frantic, Jack stumbled forward, seizing a fistful of Henry’s sweater.

With an explosive crack, the face of the clock exploded outwards. Gears, cogs and hands flew threw the air like bullets. Several of them cut through Jack’s face and the skin on the back of his hands. He let go, pain blistering his writs.

_Gong…_

The soldiers were bearing Henry towards a dark doorway which had opened in the throat of the clock.

Henry looked over his shoulder, smiling still.

“I told you not to worry,” he said.

Jack stared, disbelieving.

Flames suddenly shot over his head, engulfing one of the Footman.

Looking back, Jack saw Regina, dressed in her bathrobe, glaring daggers at the things trying to abscond with her son. But though one of the soldiers had been consumed, the flames soon died, leaving nothing but glowing metal behind.

“Let go of my son,” Regina snarled, marching forwards. Jack struggled to his feet, smirking. Now this curse would meet its maker.

But the mice continued to march forth.

_Gong…_

Regina gestured, and Henry slid back several paces, out of the grasp of his captors.

“No!” Henry stared at her. “Mom, you don’t understand.”

“I’ll deal with you in a—

Out from the depths of the clock came a bolt of acidic pink power. It hit Regina square in the chest. With a grunt, she flew half-way across the room, and landed on the other side of the dining table.

“Mom!” Henry cried. He scrambled forwards.

_Gong…_

Seizing his chance, Jack held his hand out. A wall of ice covered the room from end to end, blocking he, Henry and Regina from the four looming figures. He could just make out their blurry, indistinct shadows on the other side of the barrier.

Henry seized his own hair, looking quite at a loss. Jack grabbed him by the arm, and succeeded in marching him several paces away. Regina had righted herself, ruffled but otherwise unhurt.

With a resounding crash, the ice wall shattered. Jack turned, prepared to fire another bolt at the solider, but he was too slow. It moved with the speed of a mastiff, tackling him to the ground. He lost his grasp, and felt Henry slip away.

_Gong…_

“Henry!” Jack half-sobbed, eyes streaming from pain.

But Henry was already following the tin mice.

Regina stumbled forwards. “No,” she gasped. “Henry, come back!”

No longer obstructed by the wall of ice, Jack watched helplessly as Henry allowed the Footmen to lead him towards the portal in the center of the clock.

He looked back over his shoulder once, smiling through his streaming eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said for the umpteenth time. “You’ll find me. You will always find me.” Then he and the mice entered the dark portal. All at once the clock collapsed inward on itself. The face reformed and the glass panel over the throat reassembled as if nothing at all had happened.

_Gong._

Henry was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

Bleeding, bruised and tear-stained, Jack could do nothing but stare at the clock in mute defeat. He expected it to open at any moment, and belch Henry forth like Scrooge’s proverbial undigested bit of beef. The seconds ticked on and on. Henry wasn’t coming back.

With the exception of a few askew throw pillows, one would never had known that a struggle had taken place.

Regina stood motionless as hemlock, rage radiating from her like a vapor. Too cautious of incurring her wrath, Jack didn’t know what to say or do.

It was only when a strangled sound escaped Regina’s lips that Jack realized she was crying silently to herself. Pity stirred in his chest, a warm current beneath the icy veins crisscrossing his heart. All the regal grace and stoic strength turned to powdered snow in the face of her losing Henry. Jack saw her, not as an obstacle or a queen or sorceress—but what she was beyond all of it: a woman who loved.

Jack stepped forward hesitantly.

As if that very motion set her senses on alert, Regina looked directly at him. In the glow of the embers she seemed a positive dragon of a woman—ancient as a goddess among goddesses.

Then she deflated once more.

“It…it wasn’t me,” Jack whispered, not knowing what to do.

Regina shook her head. “I know. It couldn’t have been.” She sounded disappointed at the very idea. “Whatever took him was more powerful than the spirit of frost bite.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. He happened to be the Guardian of Childhood, not that it mattered to anyone in this forsaken town. Nevertheless, he extended the olive branch Regina’s way.

“He told me that he got someone to put the curse on him,” he said. “He didn’t say who it was, but he said it was a _she_ …”

Regina stared at Jack, stricken and completely incredulous. “There’s only one she in Storybrooke with the power to cast curses, aside from myself.” She shook with fury, and promptly marched towards the front door. Jack followed, determined to make himself a party to any attempts to rescue Henry.

“That complete bitch!” Regina fumed. “I give her the courtesy of letting her live after what she did to Robin, and this is how she repays me?”

“You don’t understand,” Jack squeaked.

Regina, not listening, pulled her jacket from the coat closet and pulled it on over her robe. “What does it matter to me that she has a brat, especially given the circumstances under which the little wretch was conceived?”

“What brat? Who’s Robin? Regina—

Regina flung the door open. Piercing cold air swept through the foyer. Though the sky was clear, bare tree branches swayed in a ghostly winter wind. Regina stamped her slippered foot, as if the inclement weather were of the greatest offense.

“I’ll kill her,” she said angrily. “I’ll kill her myself.”

“Regina,” Jack said, “Henry told me that he asked this person to do it. He must have gone to her and requested she put a curse on him.”

Regina threw Jack a glare that could have curdled new milk.

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“No,” Jack said, serving her own withering disdain right back at her. “I expect you to believe the person responsible.”

“And I will. I’ll hear it right from Zelena’s twisted lips, and when she’s done telling me what the hell she means by cursing my son, I’ll rip those lips off her face and throw them in the fire.” She glanced at the darkness outside again.

“I’m going with you,” Jack said.

“Like hell you—

“I’m involved in this.”

“Just because Henry thinks he’s in love with—

“He cursed himself so I could save him.”

Regina went very still.

Jack nodded. “That’s right, Regina. He said something about True Love’s Kiss.”

“Of course,” Regina rolled her eyes. “Everyone and their little dog too in this family tree believe it can move the moon.”

“Whether you like it or not, it’s true. Whether I can actually save him or not, I’m a part of this.” Jack brightened. “Besides, I can take you to this place faster than any car.”

Regina sighed. “Yes. I suppose you could. Although I could just teleport myself there and you wouldn’t be able to stop me. Or find Zelena’s farm.”

“No, but I’m betting I could ask Emma or Hook or anyone else and they’d tell me where it was.”

“Fine,” Regina snapped. She held her hand out. Jack seized it, and the cold began to gather around them. Regina tensed, and said, “Oh God, I forgot what your version of fast travel looks—

Her final word disappeared in a scream as Jack took them both to the sky. Winter wind carried them through the night. They dashed over rooftops and along the tip top’s of trees. Storybrooke lay sleeping below, it’s lights golden as the baubles of a Christmas tree. Freedom sang in Jack’s veins, along with no small amount of amusement—Regina’s yelps and screams of fright were rather cathartic after all she’d put him through.

“You’re going to have to tell me,” Jack yelled over the rushing wind, “where I have to land. Otherwise we could be up here all night.”

Her arm trembling, Regina pointed to a spot far on the edge of town. A house, set among snowy pastures and fields that stretched for miles and surrounded by woods on either side.

Jack flew them downwards until, at last, they landed on the front stoop.

“Are you alright?” Jack asked as a courtesy.

“Ugh,” Regina shuddered, fixing her windswept hair. “I’m fine, just let go of me before I ruin the upholstery.” She shook herself, a bit green around the gills. But Jack knew her to be the kind of woman who would let nothing stand in the way of her son’s well-being—not even air sickness.

She banged on the door so hard it nearly fell off its hinges.

Despite it being after midnight, Regina’s call was answered almost immediately. The auburn haired woman who stood opposite bore a resemblance to Regina in fragments. Her bearing, like Regina’s, was that of a person used to getting her own way by any means. Her eyes, blue as the prairie sky, stared shrewdly at Regina’s angry countenance. Unlike Regina, she still wore clothes suggesting the wee small hours had little effect on her. Jack assumed that here was the enigmatic Zelena in the flesh.

“Well,” she said with a voice accented in a dry, lyrical lilt, “if it isn’t mine little sister descending from on high to mingle with the commoners.”

“You!” Regina snarled. She sent a blast of energy Zelena’s way, but Zelena merely deflected it with a wave of the hand.

“Temper, temper.” Her gaze slid to Jack, registering him with immense interest. “And what to my wandering eyes does appear but Henry’s Romeo?”

“Romeo was a besotted idiot ruled my hormones,” Jack said. “I love Henry.”

“For his sake, I certainly hope so.” Zelena stood to one said, and gestured them across the threshold. “Come now, Regina, I was expecting this little midnight chat. Only don’t make too much noise. I do have a baby to take care of.”

Regina all but tugged Jack into Zelena’s home, muttering darkly under her breath. Jack was rather certain he heard the words “Robin Hood…little brat…” and, most disconcertingly, “product of rape.” For one wild moment, he wondered if being a part of Henry’s life would be truly worth it under these circumstances.

Zelena waved the two of them into a living room decorated rather gaily for the holidays. A moment later she returned with glasses of eggnog.

Regina and Jack met each other’s eyes, and both silently agreed not to take anything Zelena offered them.

“So tell me,” Zelena said, plopping into a wicker chair opposite her guests, “what did it look like when the curse activated? Was their dancing? Mushrooms involved, per chance?”

“You’re going to tell me exactly what you cursed him with, or I will send you back to Oz.”

“Oh please,” Zelena laughed. “By all means, get me farther away from you.”

“Oz?” Jack repeated. “Are you telling me—

“Oh, I’m the Wicked Witch of the West,” Zelena said on blithely. “Or I used to be until this one and her little friends got in my way. Now I’m just a happy homemaker, mother of one and, as of this morning, doting aunt.”

Jack gaped at her, looked at Regina, and back.

Regina rolled her eyes. “Yes, Zelena’s my sister. It’s very complicated—

“What in this town isn’t?” Jack muttered. “I mean, I’m friends with Santa Claus and this is all a bit much.”

“Are you?” Zelena brightened. “Could you put a good word in for my Robin? She’s been such an angel through her teething.”

“Enough!” Regina said.

Zelena arched her brows. “What did I say about the noise ordinance?”

“You’re not allowed to negotiate.”

“I’m sure Frosty here filled you in. Henry came to me with a request to be cursed. Nothing much. A trifling thing, really. To be enacted at midnight on Christmas Eve.” She rolled her eyes. “And of course, what will break the spell is True Love’s Kiss.”

“But where did he go?” Jack asked. “Those mice creatures pulled him into the grandfather clock.”

Zelena frowned. “Mice? Grandfather clock.” She rose, her initial glibness replaced by grave concern. “Oh dear…”

“What?” Regina followed her sister with her eyes, as if daring her to move in any way other than laterally.

Zelena ignored her, and disappeared down the hallway. A moment later she returned with a sleek laptop. Sitting down, she opened it and quickly navigated to something on the screen—something which, upon finding, gravely upset her.

“Oh, bugger it,” she muttered.

“What? Bad Wi-Fi?” Regina’s tone could have melted ice.

“No, idiot. I get wonderful speed out here.” She swiveled the laptop around. “I digitize my spell books. Something you should look into, sister dear.”

Leaning over, Jack and Regina took in the sight of what appeared to be a scanned document. The page on Zelena’s screen was old, withered with age and written in Cyrillic script.

“Yes,” Regina said, sitting back in annoyance. “Ties with Russia these days are very tenuous.”

But Jack could read the language—it was one of the numerous scripts and tongues he’d picked up during his travels around the globe.

“What’s The Land of Sweets?” He asked.

Regina froze.

“What?”

“There!” Jack jabbed a finger at a line at the bottom of the scanned document. “It says “’…to unite the Four in the Land of Sweets…’” He turned to Regina. She’d gone pale.

Zelena took her laptop back, and closed it. Contrition lined her face. Clearly whatever she’d done had had unintended consequences.

“You sent my son to the Land of Sweets?” Regina sounded as if she would laugh in incredulous anger.

“Um…whoops?” Zelena made a brave stab at a smile.

It was Jack’s turn to glare. “Okay, what is the Land of Sweets? It doesn’t sound like a whack in the backside with a leather boot, but judging from your expressions it isn’t a snowy sleigh ride either.”

Regina got to her feet. “We’re leaving,” she said. And she stormed from the living room so fast that Jack had no choice but to follow.

“Regina!” He hissed. “What is so bad about—

“I’ll tell you on the way there.” She waved her hand and the front door burst open with a loud bang. Far above, came the sounds of a crying baby. His heart moved, Jack nearly turned around, wanting to soothe the poor thing. But he couldn’t be distracted. Not with Henry at stake.

“You didn’t have to do that!” Zelena hollered from the hallway. “I didn’t mean to—I mistranslated the spell.”

“Hang onto my arm,” Regina said as she and Jack stepped into the cold night air. “The wind can’t carry you to the place we’re going.”

Jack did as he was bid. Purple smoke engulfed the both of them. One moment they were staring at the farmlands surrounding Zelena’s home, and the next they were in the parlor of Regina’s home.

“Yes,” Jack said, “this is quite the masterful plan.”

“Oh shut up.” Regina crossed the room and moved a book from the case near the wall. A small, four-foot space appeared behind the case, big enough for a child to hide in. Regina knelt down, and a moment later, withdrew a tattered old beaver top hat.

“Stand back,” she said. She placed the hot, topside down, on the floor, and flicked her wrist deftly. Before Jack’s eyes, the hat began to spin like a top.

“You know what I was,” Regina began, walking counterclockwise around the hat as it continued to spin. Was it Jack’s imagination, or was the space within the hat growing wider and wider?

“The Evil Queen,” Regina went on. “The terror of the Enchanted Forest. I razed many kingdoms to the ground. Places which were once proud and strong fell under me.” She shook her head, rueful of her past. “The Land of Sweets was among the most innocent of all the realms. A place of boundless imagination and magic. It was a place you could only reach if you knew how, and the rules for reaching it were constantly in flux. That was how powerful the magic there was. So, naturally, I had to have it.”

A wide hole was visible in the middle of the hat.

“After you,” Regina said, gesturing.

Taking a gulp, Jack leapt. He fell through darkness wider than the sea for a brief moment. Then his feet touched solid ground. He was in an enormous chamber, circular as the hat he’d leapt into. There seemed to be no ceiling to the place—nothing but dark air and ether. A moment later, Regina landed squarely next to him.

All around them stood doors—doors of all shapes and sizes and makes imaginable. Some vanished the second Jack looked too hard at them. Others changed their make-up, turning into different makes of wood or stone. Many were ornately decorated, and some were covered in cobblestones.

“This is the Palace of Portals,” Regina said. “A place only accessible by an old friend of mine.”

“And this is how we’re getting to this Land of Sweets?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” Regina said. “Realms of any kind have specific ways to be accessed. Rabbit holes, wardrobes—flying straight on til morning.”

“And grandfather clocks,” Jack said.

Regina nodded. Her eyes scanned the doors around them. “I didn’t curse the land of Sweets the way I did other realms. But I did ruin the lives of its leader and its primary source of power.” She pointed to a door some several hundred yards away. Peering closely at it, Jack noticed its frame was made of striped candy cane. The door itself appeared to be a man-sized brick of chocolate, and the handle a crystallized plum.

Something in his recollection slid into place.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, even as Regina led him towards this most extraordinary portal. He knew this now—this story and all it had inspired.

“Yes,” Regina said, bringing them to a standstill before the candied door. “I don’t think Zelena realized what she was doing. She probably searched for the simplest curse she could think of. But the Land of Sweets is no longer what it used to be. Not after it was put under the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”


	6. Chapter 6

It all made sense to Jack. The clock, the mice made out of tin. Even the timing seemed poetic.

He didn’t care, though. Whatever Regina had done to the Land of Sweets—whatever the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fair was—Henry needed him to break it.

He curled his hand over the sugared door handle. Coarse granules dug into his palm, but he bit down the discomfort.

Regina put a hand over his wrist.

“You better be capable,” she said, staring Jack down to the size of a thimble. “And if you love Henry—truly love him—then you’re the only hope he has against the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“Sugar Plum Fairy?” Jack said derisively. “Yes, it sounds very daunting. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I was able to face down the Boogeyman and emerge in tact. I think I can handle a high-calorie pixie in a tutu.”

Regina laughed. Actually laughed. Jack briefly wondered whether he’d suffered some sort of serious head trauma. But in a matter of moments, Regina had become sober.

Shaking his head, he pushed the door open.

He’d been expecting a vista of bright colors and holiday aromas. Instead, there was nothing before him but darkness and a staircase made of what looked like ice.

He looked quizzically at Regina, and she nodded—this was his quest, after all.

Despite appearing like ice, the stairs were solid. They glowed faintly blow, illuminating the darkness. The sound of grinding gears and clicking clockwork rose from the blackness around as Jack and Regina descended.

“So,” Jack said, for want of filling the silence. “This fairy—I take it she’s not exactly a Prima ballerina?”

“Not at all. Love was what drove her to curse her own people. You see, she had access to great stores of magic that outmatched my own. No matter how badly my forces attempted to gain ground, the Land of Sweets always emerged victorious. Finally, I did what I used to do best.”

“Look fetching in black?”

“No,” Regina said, the very definition of not amused. “I did the underhanded thing. The Sugar Plum Fairy loved the crown prince of her land. Fritz was his name—and hers, Anise. I could have killed Fritz. But no. I had to make it cruel. I had to put him beyond her reach.”

Jack sighed. Typical tragic story for the Mills-Swan-Blanchard extended family tree. It made his life look relatively banal.

“There was another who loved Fritz—an ordinary citizen from the Realm of the Candy Canes. A girl named Clara.” Regina spoke the name as if it pained her. “I disguised myself as a beggar woman and managed to fool Clara. I told her that if she gave Fritz a special cloak of my own design, it would protect him from harm.”

“But it didn’t, did it?” Jack said.

“What do you think?” Down and down they went, with still no end in sight. “The cloak itself was cursed. It didn’t kill Fritz. It twisted him. Turned him into a monstrosity of metal and tin.”

Light began to glow below. Orange light, like of fires, but not altogether welcoming.

“But if he was loved,” Jack said, “shouldn’t Fritz’s curse have been broken?”

“Oh yes,” Regina said quietly. “It was. But it was Clara’s love that saved Fritz. Anise tried. In front of the whole mourning kingdom she kissed that tin soldier and it didn’t work. She was so overcome with despair that Clara’s love had saved the prince that it drove her to madness. What life and light had been in the Four Realms was siphoned into deadness and despair.” She laughed bitterly. “Of course, I was only all too delighted to leave Anise to her misery.”

“But how did Zelena find that curse then?”

“Who knows? She had quite the colorful life as the Wicked Witch of the West. For all I know, Mr. Gold purloined it at some point in his free fall into evil.”

The reached the ground. Peering at his feet, Jack noticed that what appeared to be floor tiles were actually solid squares and circles of licorice. A thin rime of dust coated them, but there were several sets of footprints among the detritus—a human and four clawed feet.

“We’re here,” Jack said. He looked upwards and saw that, far ahead, stood a sort of large gazebo in the darkness. It was from here that the light glowed—a conjunction of lights in different hues. Like the floor and the door above, the gazebo was made not of brick or wood, but hard candies of white and blue.

Regina looked round at the darkness. “It’s all around us,” she said. “This was the spot where Clara kissed Fritz and broke the spell. Anise covered the land in darkness.” She broke into a run. Irritated at her lack of communication, Jack hurried after her.

The closer they came to the candy gazebo, the more details stood out. Jack skidded to a halt feet from it. For massive pillows held the domed roof aloft. And welded to the sides were the four hulking Footmen.

“Regina!” But she didn’t listen. She made for a gap between the columns. And then, for the umpteenth time that night, powerful magic sent her sailing through the air as if a giant had batted her aside.

She skidded along the licorice-laced ground. By the time he’d reached her, Regina had already got to her feet.

“Of course,” she snarled. “It’s your quest. You have to go through without me.”

Jack nodded.

“I’ll bring him back,” he said determinedly. “No matter what stands in my way.”

Regina regarded him curiously for a moment. She looked a hair’s breadth from giving Jack some sign that she approved.

But she merely nodded.

Jack kept his eyes fixed warily on the mice, but all animation had disappeared from their tinny bodies. He half-expected to be flung backwards when he crossed below the sugar-spun archway. But he passed without incident, and found himself staring at a most amazing sight.

In the center of the gazebo stood a large tree, the same obsidian color as the grandfather clock in Regina’s home. It’s branches were many and gnarled, leafless and ancient-looking. Numerous lacing of silver metal laced through it like wood rot, taking what had once been beautiful nature and commingling it with industry.

Fused to the thick bark stood a massive figure of what appeared to be a tin soldier. A familiar thing it looked, for Jack had soon many a nutcracker in his travels around the mortal world. Unlike the brightly painted crafts of the toy-maker, this effigy was, like the mice, metallic. It’s bulging head was broader than a boulder, its mouth gaping and stricken as if frozen in eternal pain.

But there was no sign of Henry. Jack searched all around the inside of the gazebo, his feet crunching over what appeared to be the detritus of centuries: clockworks, gears, cogs, axles and all manner of delicate metal works, all fallen like leaves.

Aside from the tree, there was not a sign of any other thing.

“Damn it,” Jack muttered. They must have made a mistake coming here. He turned and made for the gap beneath the archways. But he couldn’t breach it. The space was nothing but air, as if he could, indeed, simply walk out the way he’d come but try as he might, he couldn’t pass.

“Regina!” Jack called. A moment later she hurried towards him, keeping a safe distance from the entrance to the gazebo.

“I can’t leave,” Jack said, trying not to give into panic. To demonstrate, he once more tried to exit beneath the arch.

“Did you find Henry?”

“No. There’s nothing in here but an old tree and this huge tin solider.”

“I was afraid of that,” Regina said. She frowned, thought for a moment, and then squared her shoulders. “Stand back.”

Jack did as he was told.

A massive ball of fire flew towards the gazebo. But it the second it hit the structure, the flames were completely absorbed.

“ _I_ was afraid of that,” Jack hissed.

Suddenly there came a rumbling sound, of massive stonework moving against an abrasive surface.

“The mice,” Regina said, backing away. “Jack, brace yourself.”

All four emerged from the side of the columns facing the interior of the gazebo. They did not break the structure itself, but appeared to have turned themselves around and slowly, gratingly emerged to the inside of their stronghold.

They stood tall beneath the gently glowing lights of red, orange, purple and green.

Jack watched them, his muscles tense. Frost coated his hands, his magic braced to strike.

As one, the mouths of the statues fell open. They each stood with their hands cradled before them, as if in anticipation of a gift.

A sonorous voice sounded, not from the mouths of the mice, but from all around and overhead. It was a deep voice, yet undoubtedly feminine, and brimming with what sounded like the wisdom of ages. Jack noticed Regina stand rigid—she could hear it as well.

_Here is trapped the prince who fell,_

_Beneath the mantle the Soldier sleeps,_

_To you who’ve come to break the spell,_

_Traverse into the Land of Sweets._

_Part the veils of ice within,_

_Before the dawn of Christmas Day,_

_Four gifts bestow pay to guards of tin,_

_Or forever here the Soldier lay._

_A fiery braid from the Ifrit’s hair,_

_Bark from the peppermint evergreen,_

_A phial filled from where the rivers tear,_

_Stolen beauty from the Sugar queen._

_All these tasks thou must not miss_

_Nor forget the power of True Love’s Kiss_.

The voice faded into the nothingness from whence it had come. Flames erupted into the four spaces under the candy archways, each burning in the hues that had been lighting the gazebo: yellow, orange, green and pink.

“Regina!” Jack peered through the flames, but could not see her.

“It’s alright,” Regina said, her voice patient. “I haven’t gone anywhere. “I think that was the spell, only it wasn’t in Russian for our benefit.”

Jack looked over his shoulder at the tree and the gargantuan soldier trapped among its roots and bark.

_Beneath the mantle the soldier sleeps_ …

“He’s here,” Jack said. “Regina, I think Henry is here, but he’s…he’s underneath that soldier statue somehow.”

“And in order to free him you have to do as the spell bid.” She scoffed. “Zelena didn’t think this through at all, not that she ever does.”

“But I don’t understand what any of it means!” Jack began to feel slightly frantic with worry. He made a mental note to give Henry a good talking to the next time he saw the gorgeous idiot.

“Yes,” Regina said, returning to her usual rapier manner, “by all means fall into hysterics. That’s going to be such a great help.”

“Well what else am I supposed to do?”

“You have to retrieve those things in the spell. Bark from the peppermint evergreen, a braid of hair from an Ifirt, a phial of water from a place where a river tears—that must mean a tributary…”

Jack gulped. “A-and stolen beauty from the Sugar queen?”

“Yes,” Regina sighed. “That must mean that Anise either survived her own curse or something of her did.” Jack could picture Regina shrugging as if this were of no great matter. “A cake walk compared to most curses. And with you beginning an ice king you’re more capable than you think.”

“Is this you telling me to believe in myself?”

“If it gets you moving, then yes. I’m assuming you’ll have to pick one of these fireplaces and walk through it.”

Jack thought of the spell once more, and decided to go in order. The first order of business was the bark of the peppermint tree—whatever in the worlds that was. Hazarding a guess, he faced the emerald fire. This close up, he could smell something that made his stomach growl—mint, yes, but also something warm and rich. He remembered, as a mortal, gazing with ravenous hunger at the windows of the chocolatier’s shop in his old village.

“I’m going through now,” he called to Regina. As he stepped through the flames—which tickled rather pleasantly and did not singe his skin or burn his clothes—he remembered the second part of the spell.

_Before the dawn of Christmas Day…_

Henry had been taken by the curse at midnight on the twenty-third. The hours had rolled into a new day while they’d been interrogating Zelena, which made today Christmas Eve…which meant Jack had only twenty-four hours to break Henry’s curse.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adore Rise of the Guardians deeply. But I do think it lost something of the austerity of the books in adaptation, so the Guardians as they appear in this story are going to be a little of column A and a little of Column B--more in line with the books but with some of the film's charm to them.

Used to bearing witness to all matter of magical goings-on, Jack still hadn’t prepared himself for just what the Land of Sweets had to offer. The bower, with its tin soldiers and splicing of twisted clockwork and candy, had left him wondering what lay beyond the fiery archways. Certainly, he’d anticipated a continuation of the gazebo’s bizarre design.

What he found in this new land proved beyond him. One moment everything was green flames. The next, he found himself in in a city square. At his feet lay carved cobbles in palest chestnut. The buildings around were all constructed of the same dense brick in various shades of brown—some dark, others light, and still others hewn of creamy white. Some had spires stretching to a pale blue sky. Others had domed tiers that narrowed the closer to the heavens they reached. But many were in ruin, the very stones of them spilled onto the ground like the guts of a slain beast.

Jack inhaled, and the scent of something sweet and bitter filled his nostrils.

“No way,” he whispered to himself. He looked round, and saw a water fountain of pale white behind him. Nothing spouted from its stem. Treading carefully, Jack approached the fountain.

Then he bent, and lapped his tongue against the side. He grimaced, tasting dust. But beneath, more overpowering than the palate of decay was the unmistakable flavor of chocolate.

Everything in this new branch of The Land of Sweets was made of chocolate to some extent.

It could have been the stuff of Jack’s very dreams, if it weren’t for the still silence. Tomb-like and sepulchral, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Hello?” He called. His voice echoed, bouncing off the chocolate cathedrals and empty shop fronts, until, at last, the silence swallowed it into nothingness.

Jack rushed towards the nearest building, and peered through windows made of hardened sugar. He could see nothing beyond but broken bits of furniture and shadows.

Narrowing his eyes, Jack decided a better vantage point was in ordered. He gathered his magic, but nothing happened.

The air here was warm—too oppressively warm, almost like a desert.

He’d need to rely on more mundane matters of getting a good look at this strange, sugary land.

The tallest spire in the square belonged to an immense church of some kind. Without the aid of cold wind or moisture, Jack knew he’d have to climb. He started for the cathedral at a sprint, the world become a blur of browns and whites around him. The further he ran, the more devastation he witnessed. But there were no bones or remains of any kind to indicate that anything alive had once occupied this place.

Only when he had skidded to a halt outside the cathedral’s cracked and shattered steps did he realize his folly. He couldn’t possibly hope to climb several hundred feet in the air.

Undeterred, he decided to venture further out of the square. Perhaps it wasn’t safe here, and who or whatever called the Land of Chocolates home had moved onward. Back in his mortal life, Jack and his family had oftentimes sought safety in the countryside during periods of unrest.

Silence followed him through winding by-streets and alleyways. Not so much as a cat stirred a whisker. Warm wind continued to carry the aroma of old chocolate to his nose, making him dizzy and tired. Thoughts of Henry kept him forging ahead despite his exhaustion and the sweat dripping into his eyes.

The walls became narrower and narrower as he ventured into some sort of slum. Empty socketed windows watched his flight. Here the rubble was all the more profuse, and Jack had to stop several times to climb over mounds of broken chocolate. At the top of one of these, he missed his footing and toppled all the way down. The fabric of his pants ripped at the knee, and blood trickled over his torn skin.

Cursing, Jack lay on the ground clutching his leg, waiting for the pain to subside.

His eyes happened open a stretch of wall in the alleyway. Someone had etched something into the chocolate brickwork—etched in such a way that made Jack’s very fingernails feel pangs of empathetic pain.

“ _Duérmete niño…duérmete ya. Que viene el Coco y te comerá_ …”

“Spanish?” Jack said to himself. But the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy had been in Russian. Yet it made sense to him in a way—the style of those broken buildings back in the square.

He looked once more at the graffiti, and his gaze fixed on the word “Coco.” His jaw tightened. His heart burned with frost, and he heard that pitch-dark voice in the back of his mind.

“ _You can't get rid of me! Not forever! There will always be fear_.”

Jack got shakily to his leg, ignoring the dull throb from the scrape over his knee.

Pitch had many incarnations, that much Jack knew, and many names. To the Germans, he was Mummelmann. In Japan, he was known as Namahage. In Mexico, Pitch took the form of a weeping woman known as La Llorona. And in Spain, he was feared among children as Coco—the child-eater. Even magical realms had their boogeyman.

Pitch—and all his incarnations—was just as much of a Guardian as Jack and his friends were. Only he held dominion over all that was frightening. Any insinuation of dread—the shadow on the moon at night, or the legends lurking in sleepy little hollow—was Pitch’s own. And fear did not disappear once a person left childhood. It only condensed, changing from the terror of the monster under the stairs to the loss of a loved one; the threat of disease—the horror of warfare.

Anise had cursed her own realm after losing Fritz to Clara. Jack could think of no better way than to consume a land bound in magic and imagination than with fear.

Closing his eyes, Jack concentrated, but could find no trace of another Guardian. Pitch had come like a tidal wave to this place—The Land of Chocolate—and completely brought it to ruin. But he was no longer here. Whenever this event had happened, it must have been long before Jack and the Guardians had stripped Pitch of his manifested form.

Jack shook his head. He wasn’t here to cure the blight on the Land of Sweets. He was here to do a job—break Henry’s curse. The first step in accomplishing that was to find a place where things grew.

His pace hurried until he all but ran from the slums and to a spot where the buildings began to thin. A high wall, broken in many places, surrounded the city on all sides. Jack halted at the sight of, not the arch, but what lay beyond—the countryside round.

He’d seen war before—had tried to shield children from it in all its forms. The hills beyond the city looked the very picture of a decimated landscape. No trees of any sort dotted the landscape. Just rolling hills of dead brown and that too-blue sky without any clouds.

A strangled cry escaped Jack’s lips. Yet still he ran from the Alhambra, under the archway and to the road beyond. The further he got from the broken bastion of this land, the more discouraged he became. He could see nothing but the barren, lifeless hills.

He sank to his knees, breathing hard. His chest ached, and not with exertion. A numb, coldness traveled from his heart throughout his body. He lost sight of Henry, of his cause for being here in the first place. Once more he felt himself back in that despondent, empty place he’d been for centuries.

Who could love someone like him? Nobody had come to his rescue when he’d drowned in that frigid lake. The other Guardians had thought him a nuisance until Pitch had tried to cover the world in dread—and obviously they hadn’t been powerful enough to save places like The Land of Sweets. Of course Regina didn’t want Jack to be with Henry—he was the worst sort of influence—a feckless prankster who came and went with the very wind he rode in on.

Pain exploded behind his head. He jerked forwards, dazed to the point of disorientation. Had he really been so deep in despair that he’d caused his own sort of traumatic head injury. Jack looked around, rubbing the egg growing on his scalp.

He heard a sound of whipping air—but though the warm winds ghosting over the Land of Chocolate were far too balmy for his liking, they weren’t fast enough to elicit such a sound.

A split-second later, Jack saw the source of the sound—and also knew it to be the cause of his injury. He flattened himself to the shaved chocolate road and not a moment too soon. A boomerang went flying over his body. Jack raised himself to a kneeling position, and looked back.

He shook his head.

He rubbed his eyes.

“I must have a concussion,” he told himself dazedly. How else could he explain the sight of the tall, ginger-haired rabbit creature in a lime green waistcoat idly standing not twenty feet off? There was no chance in this realm or any other that E. Aster Bunnymund could have found Jack in the Land of Sweets.

“A concussion?” Bunny said in his slow, philosophical voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted in all my life.”

“I…I… _what_?”

Bunny walked with practiced steps towards the spot where Jack stood. Her peered over his green-lensed pince-nez at Jack, his expression scolding.

“Your hopelessness was loud enough to wake the dead.”

Jack frowned, rubbing the spot where Bunny’s boomerang had struck him. “Maybe don’t say things like that here.”

“What, this place?” Bunny looked round at the lifeless Land of Chocolate. “It isn’t dead at all, Jack. Nothing ever truly is. Things merely change. Sometimes not in the way we want them to.”

“Pitch was here, Bunny. A long, long time ago.”

Bunny combed at his whiskers, his expression unfathomable. “Yes,” he sighed. “I daresay he was. This and many places have fallen under his terror.”

“I don’t understand how Anise could have harnessed his power,” Jack said.

“Any deed done in the name of darkness carries the powers of Pitch,” Bunny said, looking forlornly towards the Alhambra in behind. Jack felt a pang of pity. Bunny’s race had been massacred to the point of extinction by Pitch. He was the only one left.

But Bunny wasn’t one to fall under a fit of the sullens for longer than he could help. He shook himself, and glared at Jack.

“You ought to know better than to sink into self-loathing,” he said sternly. “I should think after falling in love with that boy, you’d have even more reasons to rejoice.”

Jack gaped at him. “How did you know—

“North,” Bunny said airily. “Honestly, Jack, you’re more astute than this.”

“I’m supposed to bring him back,” Jack said. “That’s why I came here in the first place. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to retrieve the bark of the peppermint tree when there aren’t any trees left!”

“Not falling into hysterics is a good way to start.”

Jack looked daggers at the half-rabbit half-kangaroo. “Please tell me you didn’t come here just to give me a pep-talk.”

“No. I came here to help.” Bunny reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew an egg as big as a brick. He handed it to Jack. “Mind you, this won’t grow if you nourish it with self-pity.” As Jack cradled the egg in both hands, Bunny tapped him in the chest, squarely over the place where his heart thrummed. His hairy eyebrows rose, but all he said was, “How very curious…even after all this time.” Then he turned, and began to meander away.

“W-wait!” Still taking care to hold tightly to the egg, Jack jogged after him. “You can’t just leave me here after dropping some Dumbledore line on me!”

“Dumble-who?” Bunny gazed at Jack as if worried for his sanity. But already he was bracing his powerful legs for a leap. “You’ll succeed, Jack. It’s in your nature, aggravating as you are. Just remember that life and all things start within an egg.” And with that, he bounded upwards, and vanished from sight.

Jack stared, open-mouthed at the sky.

“Well thanks for nothing!” He yelled.

Bunny didn’t respond or reappear. Jack stood alone, holding the egg and wondering how in the world it was supposed to help him. If Bunny meant for him to wait for the thing to hatch, then he was utterly doomed. Who knew how long it would take for the thing to bring forth whatever new life Bunny wanted him to wait for?

With no other resources at hand, Jack dug a small hole in the granular chocolate path, and wedged the egg inside of it. He watched it for a moment, its smooth ivory surface gleaming in the light of the almighty sun.

He tried pleading with it. He coaxed it to open. In his politest voice, he asked it if it were ready to be born. He rubbed it vigorously with his palms, until it was too slippery with his own sweat to hang onto. He ordered it to hatch. He walked around it, yelling both at it, the heavens and the disappeared Bunny. Various fragments of spells he recalled did nothing.

Utterly spent, he collapsed on the ground next to the egg, panting. Time was running out, although there was no way to judge based on his surroundings. The passage of time seemed to have frozen in the Land of Chocolates.

The sting of cold pricked at Jack’s heart once more. He almost felt himself slip into the frigid lake of self-defeat—but then Bunny’s words came back to him.

“… _this won’t grow if you nourish it with self-pity…”_

Jack sat up, and looked at the egg quizzically. Bunny had come to him when he’d been at his lowest. Bunny—who for all his posturing and reserve was the Guardian of Hope.

What was life—the very act of living—but the ultimate act of a belief in hope?

Biting his lower lip, Jack took both sides of the egg in his hands, and closed his eyes. He dug within himself, around the rime of frost still lacing his heart, and searched. He searched for the glowing warmth he felt whenever Henry made him laugh, or kissed him, or made him feel as if he were the only person in all the realms. He thought of his friends—his fellow Guardians, and how their acceptance after so many centuries had lifted him from somewhere nightmarish and lonely. He thought of the children of the world, and all the potential and joy they felt—they, who, even if it was ignorant, did not stumble and sink the way many grown people did.

A new sort of cold slipped through his fingers. Not biting and choking and sub-Arctic—it was the cold of a sunny winter’s day; the cold of a gentle, flurrying snowfall. The sort of cold that one could play in with loved ones, then shelter indoors from with a cup of hot chocolate. It flowed in rivers from his body into the egg, which began to tremble.

Jack’s eyes snapped open. Fissures cracked the shell of the egg as it shook like a boiling kettle. But he did not let go. He focused on the egg, on the potential it held—so like the potential of newborn life unfolded. This egg could save The Land of Chocolate—rebuild it after Anise’s curse and Pitch’s ravaging had made it desolate and dead.

With a loud crack like shattering stone, the egg broke apart. A light of palest green, thick as a column and taller than sight could absorb, rocketed straight into the sky. Jack toppled backward, staring at the font, jaw agape in wonder. He could not see the apex of the column, only that it pierced the daunting, empty blue sky.

Soon, however, he noticed the change.

Pillow clouds billowed outwards from the spot where the egg’s magic met the firmament. Fleecy as sheep, they spread with the speed of a derecho out across the horizon, enveloping the land. And still the light did not dissipate.

Something wet plopped onto Jack’s nose.

He frowned. Then another droplet splattered onto his face. Then another. And another. A veritable deluge descended from the clouds, which almost totally obscured the sky. A faint fragrance of sweetest mint danced along the wind, now rendered cool and refreshing.

Of course.

All life came from water.

Jack laughed, spinning around and getting soaked through to the skin as the minty rain cascaded over the Land of Chocolate. The ground beneath his feet trembled, and he stepped back onto the path from the Alhambra, watching in wonder as the chocolate earth cracked. Faster than his eyes could conceive, immense stalks of smooth cream color burst forth from the ground. They grew at an immense rate, their tops as high as primordial trees. Branches extended from the trunks, twisted and long and extending this way and that. From the ends of them grew thick, broad leaves of emerald green.

So many trees now grew that Jack had to find higher ground. The air permeated with moisture, he had no trouble at all taking to the sky, flying on the wings of the cool wind. He smiled, and cried out in delight as, all around him, he saw life blooming as far as the eye could see. Rivers flowed from hills and peaks once rendered uninhabitable. Patches of bright green and candy red bloomed in small meadows and gardens here and there.

He came to land on a small plateau overlooking the Alhambra. The light was still streaming forth like a pillar of support from the center of the land. Perhaps it would always be there, like Atlas, carrying the sky.

He took shelter beneath one of the trees, and noticed that the leaves were not of pine or aspen or any other sort of tree from Henry’s world.

They were mint leaves.

The bark of the tree was white, yes, but it was also dotted with strips and divots of red.

“The bark of the peppermint tree,” Jack said to himself. He put a hand on the coarse surface of the growth. “Peppermint bark! Of course!”

He regarded the tree warily. After this land being devoid of any kind of life, it seemed almost cruel to cause it injury.

“Er…would you mind terribly if I took some of your bark? Just a small bit. It’s not for me, you see. It’s for the curse—to break the curse on the boy I love…”

Of course the tree didn’t speak. Jack didn’t think this place was quite that magical. But he rather thought he felt a sort of pulse emanate from the peppermint tree. In any event, he didn’t really like the feeling of simply taking something, no matter how much he needed it.

Lacking a knife or weapon of any description, Jack dug his fingers into the tree. He pulled small strip of bark away, and found that it was much more like the sugary confection than he’d assumed. The white coating was only the surface—beneath, the tree’s flesh was dark and chocolatey.

Jack grinned to himself, and looked round.

“Hey!” He yelled at the rainy sky. “Um…I’ve got the first item…” He wondered if this would be like one of Henry’s video games, where achieving his aim would prove enough to send him back to Fritz’s Bower.

Nothing whatsoever happened.

Grimacing, Jack took to the air again, and looked around at the Land of Chocolate.

He saw nothing to suggest a way out.

His eyes fell on the streaming pillar of light. It shone just as green as the flames back in the bower.

With a sigh, Jack flew at top speed towards it, worrying that the peppermint bark would melt the longer he held it. If this didn’t work, he hadn’t the foggiest idea how he would get back to the spot where Henry lay waiting.

His eyes burned as he looked at the pale green pillar of power, but he did not stray. He flew straight into it—

\--and then somersaulted, backside over tea kettle—onto the strewn ground of the bower.

Grunting, Jack stood, and looked around. There was the tree, dark and twisted. There stood the grotesque tin soldier, its mouth agape, its eyes staring eternally forward.

“Regina!” Jack called. “I’ve got it! I’ve got the peppermint bark.”

He almost expected her not to respond. It would, after all, be just like Regina to leave him here to fend for himself.

“Thank God,” Regina sighed from outside the bower.

“Have I been gone long?”

“About an hour,” Regina said tensely. “Quick, now. Judging from that stupid rhyme, I think you have to give whatever it is you find to these gargoyles.”

Jack walked to the stone and tin mouse soldier closest to the entrance leading to the Land of Chocolate. He regarded it cautiously, not knowing what would happen once he gave it the strip of bark.

It had its clawed hands cupped before it, as if in expectation of a gift.

Jack placed the peppermint bark in its hands.

A ribbon of green shot from the spot where the bark lay. It hit the front of the tin soldier. A line split the effigy from top to bottom. With a deafening sound of scraping metal, it slowly opened from either side.

“It’s a nesting doll,” Jack said to himself. True enough, once the outer shell opened, there lay a second layer—this soldier was made of bronze, yet just as ornately carved as the outer layer. Unlike the outer shell, the inner layer looked less grotesque—more of a human soldier of Russian origin than anything else. Yet the expression was still alarming—almost as if it were in pain.

“What happened?” Regina called from her spot outside Fritz’s Bower.

“It’s not over yet,” Jack sighed, looking around at the three remaining arches. “I’ll try to be quicker this time.”

He heard Regina take a shuddering breath. “Don’t push yourself too much,” she said. “I’m still trying to work some magic out here—not that it’s much good. This curse is as much of a bitch as the woman who cast it.”

Jack walked towards the arch with the orange burning fire. He caught a strong whiff of acidic coffee, which served to pep him up somewhat.

“What was the second part of the rhyme?” Jack called to Regina.

“Something about getting hair from an Ifrit.”

Jack’s heart sank.

“Perfect.” He knew of Ifrit’s—demons of fire, more powerful than djinn, and truly terrible to behold.

But he walked forth nevertheless.

Perhaps he would have an easier time of it here.

Ifrit’s may have had dominion over flame—but he was still ice underneath it all.


	8. Chapter 8

Regina heard the sudden “woosh” from within the bower as Jack disappeared. For the entire hour that he’d been gone, she’d waited in the dark place outside Fritz’s gazebo, thinking hard. She’d attempted to work all sorts of magic—from mild tricks to full-fledged attacks—but nothing worked. Every spell seeped into the bower, never to return again.

She rubbed at her heads. It was the wee small hours of the morning on Christmas Eve. By rights, she ought to have been putting the finishing touches on the Big Day—holed up in the kitchen making food. Last year, Mary Margaret and David had had the honors of hosting the weird family get together. And while Regina appreciated the quaint, coziness of the affair, this year should have been her time to shine.

From far overhead, she heard someone crying her name.

“Regina? Regina, where are you?”

Regina screwed her face up in confusion. What in the world was Snow White doing here at this hour?

With a sigh, she snapped her fingers. A pillar of purple smoke formed in front of her. A moment later, Mary Margaret materialized, unsteady in the act of being through the sugar down and down the candy staircase. Dressed in a puffy white jacket over what appeared to be her pajamas, she blinked rapidly as her bearings returned to her.

Regina held up a finger just as Mary Margaret started to speak.

“Before I explain myself—it’s a very long explanation—you’d better have a viable reason for breaking into my house at two in the morning.”

With an offended scoff, Mary Margaret said, “I’ll have you know that I left my husband and child alone to come here.”

“And I’ll have you know it’s nothing to do with me that you got married and had children.”

“It’s about your child that I’m here in the first place.”

Regina arched an eyebrow. “What a coincidence. Henry’s the reason I’m down in this hat, too.”

“He’s planning on cursing himself,” Mary Margaret said, her voice brimming with nervous energy. “I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything sooner, but he made David and I promise not to tell—

“Wait a moment,” Regina said. “Henry told you about this?”

“Yes! That’s why I came here. I had to say something…before…he…” Mary Margaret’s voice trailed away. She took in the severe set of Regina’s face, and then looked around once more at the enchanted space around them.

“Oh,” she said, fidgeting on the spot. “Oh no, please don’t tell me he already did it.”

“Oh, he more than did it. He went to Zelena to do it and managed to drag Little Jack Frost into the mix.” Regina shook her head, hurt beyond words. “I can’t believe he went behind my back.”

Mary Margaret’s gaze softened. It was an understanding expression, one that tended to precede some doggerel about hope and love. Regina was in no mood to hear it under the circumstances, and she itched to silence her former stepdaughter with a snap of her fingers.

What Mary Margaret said instead was, “You made him feel like he had no other choice.”

Regina stiffened.

“Regina,” Mary Margaret continued, “it’s been a year since Jack came into his life, and you haven’t exactly been accommodating. And do not,” the woman said, rising her voice as Regina had been about to interrupt, “tell me that it’s because you don’t trust Jack. If he were any sort of danger, he’d have shown it by now. You need to dig deep in that heart of yours and face the facts: you’re upset because you think Henry’s going to leave you.”

Regina glared at Mary Margaret. “Where did your insight to human nature come from, anyway? You’d think with all your intuition you’d have known better than to let me marry your father.”

With a wry grin, Mary Margaret said, “It was because of you that I learned how to read people.”

“There’s been so much happening since he brought Emma to Storybrooke,” Regina said, looking over Mary Margaret’s shoulder at the fiery arches of the bower. “I feel like I only had a handful of years before he started becoming this—this person outside my grasp.”

“It was bound to happen, Regina. It’s called puberty.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant, princess. I’ve lived in fear of losing him since the day he came into my life. I almost did, several times. And just when I felt us on level ground, along came Mister White Christmas.” She frowned, and added with no undue venom, “Just look at what that platinum-haired little bastard has gotten us into.”

“No,” said Mary Margaret, “look at what your stubbornness got them into. Henry and Jack have tried everything to win your approval, and you never gave it even though you know you could have. You can’t tell me it was pure love and concern that stopped you, Regina. I know you better than that.”

“You’re right,” Regina said stormily. “It was pure spite and I’m a terrible mother. Happy?”

“No.” Mary Margaret offered a wan smile. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now, can we?” She gestured at the bower. “So what exactly is this curse?”

“The Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” Regina sighed. When Mary Margaret’s eyes went wide as a Christmas wreath, it was all Regina could do not smack it from her cherubic face. “Don’t look at me like that. I suppose my actions towards Anise would come back to haunt me like everything else. But The Land of Sweets was supposed to have been destroyed. Or at least that’s what I thought had happened.”

Mary Margaret swallowed, visibly shaken by the news. She knew all too well about the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

“So Jack,” she said slowly, “is in there trying to save Henry?”

“Yes, and he only has until dawn on Christmas Day. He’s retrieved one of the Gifts so far.”

Mary Margaret brightened. “That’s better than a kick in the backside, don’t you think.”

“You don’t know this place like I do,” Regina said somewhat forlornly. This side of her days as the Evil Queen, she felt a deep sense of remorse for having utilized love as a weapon against Anise.

Mary Margaret regarded the bower as if it were a war memorial. “I remember hearing tales about The Land of Sweets.”

“They were all exaggerated,” Regina said. It wasn’t a place of wonder and enchantment, not after Anise had cast her curse. Regina had watched it all in her Magic Mirror: how, one by one, each of the realms had fallen under the direst of curses. It had, in fact, been the seed of inspiration for the magicks she herself would work one day.

“I don’t know how it works,” Regina admitted at last. “I don’t know why this place has remained here, or what became of Fritz and Clara except that they both perished. It must be some sort of residual curse—whoever enters is doomed to take the place of the doomed Prince.”

And now Henry had fulfilled that role. Would Jack be able to conquer the place?

The best that could be said for Mary Margaret was that she did no cow easily. Where others may have fallen to shambles in light of present circumstances, Regina’s former nemesis looked the present situation full in the face.

“Jack will be the one,” she said, putting a firm hand on Regina’s shoulder. Regina surprised herself by not flinching at the touch. “We’ve been through enough curses to fill a book.”

Regina held her breath for a moment. She didn’t want to dash Snow White’s determination. It was only that, in most cases, Regina herself was involved in the curse and sometimes breaking of it. Now she had to do that which for her was harder than even tearing out her own father’s heart—put her trust in someone.


	9. Chapter 9

Based on scent alone, Jack had anticipated the Land of Coffee to be just as, if not more so, arid than the Land of Chocolates. So it was with some alarm that he left the glowing to find himself among darkness and cold. Of course, the chill meant little to one such as he. But the second he beheld where it was he now stood, the wrongness of the place made him stand at attention.

He felt suddenly wide awake, keenly aware of the box-shaped dwellings all around him. Small windows like eyes dotted every smooth dwelling. He felt, once more, observed, only this time it was not the very absence of life which seemed to be watching him, but the presence of many things unseen.

This way and that he looked. Once more he had materialized in some sort of square. Only here the buildings were humble. Unlike the Land of Chocolate, there were trees lining the square—tall things like palms. Only their barks were pale as if eaten by some sort of botanical disease.

Looking towards the sky, Jack saw, far off in the distance, the domed turrets of some grand palace. It stood against the dark sky like a sentinel, its walls pale as bone.

Was the Ifrit he sought there? Surely it would be somewhere magnificent, if it were lord and master of this land?

A sound of scuffled steps made Jack tense. He waited, not daring to look round lest he find whatever it was that now ambled around the square. It moved as if dragging its feet over sandpaper—and it was moving right to where he stood.

Magic prickled at the back of his knuckles, but he stayed his hand. For all he knew, the Land of Coffee could still have life in it. If the Ifrit was so important that it featured in the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy, it stood to reason that thing might have enslaved the people who dwelled here. He wouldn’t risk causing harm to any living thing.

Closer and closer the shuffling steps drew, until the figure stood less than five yards off.

Jack turned, his hands glowing with pale magic light.

The figure before him was hunched. Ragged robes clothed them from head to foot, so that Jack could not see the make of them. The sight stirred pity in his heart, yet he found this stranger somewhat repellent.

“Hello,” Jack said, speaking softly so as not to alarm. “Do you live here?”

The figure did not respond. Only the rising and falling of their stooped shoulders displayed that they were, in fact, alive.

“I’m trying to find the Ifrit,” Jack said.

Still, the figure did not respond. Jack frowned, and searched through his lexicon of languages. Judging by the architecture, the place seemed more Arabic than anything else. Even such a region as that had many languages and dialects.

Perhaps this pitiful wretch could not hear no matter what language Jack spoke.

“Are you alright?” Jack asked. He raised a hand—still pulsing with power.

The figure suddenly lifted its head. Jack shrank back, horrified at the visage he beheld. To say that the thing was a skeleton would have been inaccurate. It looked human well enough—but its skin had shriveled almost to the point of being bone. It had the pallor of coffee dregs, save for two gaping sockets in its head where an diseased light of bilious yellow shone.

It let peal a horrifying scream and loped forwards. Jack staggered backwards, momentarily stunned. The ghoul’s mouth opened wide—wider than any human mouth.

Before he could trip over his own feet, Jack raised a hand and fired a bolt of ice. It solidified at the ghoul’s legs, leaving it encased in a block of ice.

The ghoul struggled, flailing arms ending in clawed hands. Its screams and howls filled the cold darkness.

More screams answered those of Jack’s ghoul. They came from all around, issuing from the dark houses in the market square. In a matter of seconds, more emaciated figures crawled and lumbered from houses and alleyways. Some wore the same filthy raiment’s of the first ghoul—still others wore nothing but their own shriveled skin. They were dozens and dozens of them—almost a hundred crowding around and screaming their horrible screams.

With no other course of action, Jack leapt into the air.

Here, at least, the atmosphere was cold enough to carry him away. The infested square shrank beneath him as he climbed higher and higher into the sky. By the pale blue light of a dismal moon, he saw the streets in the slums. Dark figures shambled to and fro—all moving towards the ghoul still frozen below.

Was this Pitch’s doing? Or had it all be Anise’s curse that drove the Land of Coffee to this—to this infestation of undead creatures? Jack did not know, and he didn’t care to find out. If there were ghouls, then there had to be an Ifrit somewhere around here.

A piercing cry sent Jack nearly toppling to the ground. Righting himself, he looked to the south. Something big and black was flying towards him at tremendous speed. It sailed below the moon, and in the sickly silver light Jack saw that it was a massive bird of some kind. Like the ghouls down below, it too had a skeletal appearance. No feathers clung to its bony frame, but hate blazed in its eyes.

A Roc!

It flew so fast that Jack scarcely had time to dart out of the way. Even then, it turned on a dime, crying out in fury and distress.

“Wait!” Jack cried. The Roc flew at breakneck speed towards him. Jack flew to the side, and the brute’s wings clipped him. He somersaulted in the air, and had just enough time to gauge the Roc’s position before it charged him once more.

Snarling, Jack stood his air. He held both hands forth, and a wall of icy wind pushed the Roc back several dozen feet.

He wouldn’t kill it. He could not kill it. It wasn’t in Jack’s nature. In any case, though the Roc was truly horrible to behold, it, like the ghouls, was altogether pitiable—more diseased than dangerous.

Gritting his teeth, Jack sent a shower of ice crystals forth from his barrier. They buffeted the Roc, which flew backwards, crying out in alarm and pain. It screeched and gave a great burst forward, moving faster than it yet had. Jack endeavored to dodge the Roc, but he moved too late. Its wing sent him spiraling downwards through the cold sky.

Jack fell through a dark, frigid pool of something like water but dark. With powerful strokes he swam surfaceward, squinting his eyes against the liquid surrounding him. With a gasp, he broke through the surface. He seemed to have fallen into a lake of bitter coffee, only it was cold as stone.

Peering around he found that he was in a sort of oasis in the middle of the deserts surrounding the city of the ghouls. He kicked towards the shoreline, his muscles aching and his bones weary. He knew he ought to have felt plumb-tired from his efforts—to say nothing of just how long he’d been awake. Yet sheer tiredness felt out of his reach—hovering nearby, tantalizing but elusive.

He crawled onto the shore, sopping wet and thankful that he could not succumb to hypothermia any longer.

The plunge in the pool had stirred those painful memories, but he would not give in. Not after Bunny had intervened to offer him aid.

Instead, he sat back against a large rock—which, upon closer inspection, was actually a gigantic coffee bean. Tempting as it was to give in, he couldn’t—and not out of willpower. To surrender was to rest. And Jack found that he could do nothing of the kind in this cold, dark, restless land.

He grasped the sand, feeling its coarseness between his fingers. Every nerve ending in his body felt sensitive to pure sensation. His thoughts came stark and hard in his mind, as if he were seeing a high-definition film.

The sand stirred beneath his palm.

Jack’s eyes snapped open. No wind blew through the broad leaves of the coffee trees. The waters of the oasis were placed and still. Yet the sand all around him was moving as if disturbed by an almighty breath. It began to glow, faintly at first, and then brighter, until it grew vibrant with the gold of a nightlight. Billions of granules levitated off the ground, surrounding Jack as if he were trapped within an hourglass.

Without any preamble whatsoever, a small, squat figure materialized among the shifting dome of glowing sand. Had it not been for his inability to rest, let alone sleep, and Jack would have thought himself dreaming.

A broad, friendly grin spread across Sanderson Mansnoozie’s wide face. His hair danced as if in the very winds he’d somehow summoned to this very spot.

Jack did not move, but stared in welcoming awe at his friend. Bunny was one thing. But Sandy? Someone had to be watching over him for the Guardians to find him in the Land of Sweets.

Sandy glided forward, regarding Jack as if he were a perplexing equation. He glided over the top of Jack’s head, then to his opposite side, and shook his head.

“What’s happened to me, Sandy?” Jack asked, his voice hoarse.

Sandy crossed his legs, and hovered in the air before Jack. He spread his hands forth, and a bubble of sand formed in the space separating them. A dream—not Jack’s, but that of the realm.

He saw the Land of Coffee as it had once been: majestic and lively. Humans and creatures dressed in flowing fabrics mingled in market squares and lounged around the palace. The Roc soared over desert sands the color of cream, the sun gleaming off its royal blue wings. Deep inside a cave system, shadows parted and fell as a whole host of massive, fiery, horned Ifrit carved through stone to the place where precious jewels lay.

The change was not noticeable at first. The sun set, and a pale, full moon rose over the desert. Still the denizens of the realm continued about their activities. Some wore expressions of confusion; others seemed oblivious.

Then the creatures began gnawing on rocks and boulders. People tore at their hair. Others fell and closed their eyes, chests rising and falling rapidly as if trying to sleep. Panic and despair spread among them as the sun rose and set in rapid succession.

Jack’s heart went out to them.

“Anise’s curse,” he said softly. “She made it impossible for them to fall asleep, didn’t she?”

Soon the dream was that of ghouls and withered flesh. Without sleep, the occupants of the Land of Coffee hadn’t been able to restore or replenish themselves. Where it would have been the death of anything mortal, it simply drove them to decay.

With a slight gesture, Sandy closed his hands around the bubble. The sand fell back to the ground from whence it had come.

“What am I to do?” Jack said.

Sandy cast him a look that clearly said, “ _Who do you think you’re talking to_?”

He cupped his hands. At once, all the sand around them coalesced into a tight, shimmering sphere. The orb gleamed bright as a star. Sandy gently held it forth, meaning for Jack to take it.

Still, Jack did not move.

“I don’t understand.”

Sandy grimaced. Above his head appeared the image of wings.

“Oh!” Jack got to his feet, cupping his hands in imitation of the other Guardian. “Of course! It’ll put them all to sleep.” A faint warmth issued from the sand sphere, pleasant in the cold of the desert night.

“But how will that help me find the Ifrit?” Jack asked.

Sandy shrugged, and began to sink into the sands around them.

Jack glared at him. “Wonderful. You and Bunny, taking off before you can spell it out for me.”

Sandy simply smiled in response, and a moment later, was gone from sight.

Confused as he was, Jack knew there wasn’t a second to spare. Still cradling the sleeping sand in one open palm, he took to the skies. At once, a torrent of the glowing golden powder descended from the sky, covering the earth below. Yet as far as he flew, the sphere did not deplete.

Jack heard the scream of the Roc from up ahead. Narrowing his eyes, he rocketed high into the sky—nearly touching the gleaming moon. Below, he saw the bird-beast trailing him, gaunt and nearly but not quite a skeleton.

Turning upside down, Jack vaulted over the Roc. Sand poured down, coating the creature from head to bony tail feathers. For a moment, Jack feared it would plummet to the ground and break apart. Yet the very second it came in contact with Sandy’s dust of sleep, all the agitation and rage seemed to disappear from the Roc’s body. It floated gently to the desert below like a feather, until it was nothing more than a dark dot on the sand.

Swooping earthwards, Jack saw that it had fallen fast asleep. Already bits of near feather were inching through its emaciated body.

“Well,” Jack thought as he alighted to the air once more, “a little of that goes a long way.”

He scoured the Land of Coffee from edge to edge, finding cities like the one he’d appeared in brimming with ghouls. All creatures great and small sank to the ground in blissful rest the moment the fell under the power of the slumbering sand. Hair and skin regrew thick and fast as moss over those who had once been human. Fur, fang, claw, scales and things not material returned to the animals and magical creatures.

And still Jack flew on and on. He couldn’t simply turn his back on this place. Not when he saw the reprehensible conditions Anise’s curse had left it in.

How long he flew he did not know. The night remained unchanged, and perhaps day would never break over the Land of Coffee again. He still felt wide-awake, despite wanting sleep for the sheer sake of it.

There had been no sign of the Ifrit. But he remembered the dream in Sandy’s bubble. The Ifrit had lived in caves, under the earth. Jack had flown through the air, over land and above the coffee-oceans bringing rest to the inhabitants of this cursed realm. He still needed to go underground.

He flew towards a massive expanse of jagged mountains. Here the air was far colder than it had been anywhere else. It did not take him long to find a yawning mouth of a cave. The glow from the sleeping sand lit his way through a dark system of twisting and turning tunnels. Even as he flew he heard the sound of something immense breathing in the blackness.

When he found the Ifrit at least, he nearly ran smack into it. Tall as a tree, it was not the powerful being it ought to have been. Like the Roc and the ghouls, it was black bone and mottled skin. Twin horns jutted from its head, nearly scraping the tops of the cave. It screamed, a hideous sound that echoed around the cavern. Further screams answered it back, and Jack knew this place to be home to a whole host of Ifrit—perhaps even all the Ifrit in the Land of Coffee.

The Ifrit loped towards him like a thing from a nightmare—but Jack stood his ground. He was no longer remotely afraid of anything in this realm. They were not dangerous, only desperate.

Golden sand flowed like a whirlpool from the sphere. It enveloped the Ifrit, which staggered and then finally fell into the first rest it had had in centuries.

As Jack stared, the Ifrit began to expand outwards. Its body took form, it’s muscles powerful and sleek. Hair grew in a long mane of red from its head and chin and over its bulging chest.

“The beard!” Jack said to himself. He took a step forward, prepared to tear a chunk of the Ifrit’s beard out. All of a sudden the scarlet sheen of its tresses disappeared in a burst of flame which continued to burn and would burn everlasting.

Jack backed away.

Right.

How was he supposed to return fire to Frit’z Bower anyway?

Screams from around the tunnels told him more Ifrit were on their way.

The sphere suddenly flew from his hand to the ceiling of the cave.

“Hey!” Jack cried, flying off after its glow. But it was faster than sound, and he could only discern which direction it traveled from the shadows playing off the smooth stone of the caves.

He flew over more and more slumbering Ifrit, all of them aglow in flames. There must have been two-dozen in the tunnels. By the time he found the sleeping sand again, it had led him back out to the mountainside. There, it hovered near a small cluster of reeds beside a stream of pure coffee.

“I suppose I should say thank you for that,” Jack said with a chuckle as he approached the orb. “We’ll have this land healed up in no time. As for me, I honestly don’t know what to do. Unless you can point me in the direction of magic shears.”

The orb suddenly trembled, as if irritated by Jack’s denseness. It butted against the reeds, and then hovered in the air once more.

Jack frowned. “The reeds? Am I meant to summon something with them? Hey!” The sphere had charged at him, battering at his head and neck. “What do you want from me? I speak a lot of languages, but sleeping sand isn’t one of them.”

Again, the sphere glided towards the reeds. This time it simply sat in mid-air over top of them like a sun in miniature.

“Get away from there!” Jack said. “You emit enough warmth to start a fi—

His voice died a way.

And then he laughed, long and loud.

Ifrit didn’t have hair. They were spirits of flame itself. A fiery braid from the Ifrit’s hair didn’t require Jack to cut the flame at all—but merely bring the flame back to the bower.

“I really am an idiot,” Jack said once he’d calmed down. He stepped towards the reeds, and, with a tug, pulled a long stalk from the ground.

“Thank you,” he said to the sphere.

It did not move, but remained where it was.

“Er…wait for me?”

The sphere bobbed, as if nodding.

It took Jack no time at all to find the first sleeping Ifrit. Already it looked a thing of its former glory, so vast that it blocked the passage beyond with its bulk.

Steam spiraled form its nostrils as it snored. Jack approached it cautiously, expecting it to awaken at a moment’s notice. But it slept on and on. All around the cave and outside, The Land of Coffee slept for the first time since the casting of the curse.

Jack held the bundle of reeds to the fiery beard of the Ifrit. It caught fire at once.

Moving as quickly as he could lest the reeds burn, Jack hurried back to the cave’s entrance. He relied on nothing more than faith that he would find a way back to Fritz’s Bower.

The exit proved close at hand.

The sleeping sand had expanded into a large portal in mid-air.

Jack all but leapt through it, and as he did so felt the horrible wakefulness slip from him like water from the wings of a swan. Acute exhaustion folded him round as he touched back down in Fritz’s Bower. His legs would not carry him as he staggered towards the mouse with its outstretched hand.

_Just a little more_ , Jack thought, his eyelids heavy as thunder clouds. _Come on…I’m almost there…_

His knees buckled.

Jack grit his teeth so hard he felt his jaw click. He dropped the flaming reeds into the hands of the hewn soldier.

Only when he saw it take did he give in. He didn’t even manage to turn round as the third layer of the Soldier in his tree cracked open and revealed yet another nesting doll within.

He fell flat on his face, claimed by much needed slumber.


	10. Chapter 10

The only thing Regina and Mary Margaret heard of Jack’s return to Fritz’s Bower was a dull thud. Both women had been around enough such instances to recognize when a body had hit the ground.

“Jack?” Regina said, her voice harsh. When no response was forthcoming, he yelled in her best tone of command, “Jack!” Still, no response.

“Oh God,” Mary Margaret whispered. “You don’t think—

“No,” Regina said, drawing her bathrobe closer around her. “He’s too much of a nuisance to fall down right now.”

Mary Margaret arched her eyebrows.

“Now what?”

“I think you meant to say ‘He loves Henry too much to give up’ but I’ll let it pass.”

Really, the way the woman carried on. It was unfair, that she had to be so perceptive into human nature. That she was nine-times-out-of-ten correct when it came to Regina was purely a cruel hand of Fate.

Concerned, angry and also a touch exhausted from her disturbed sleep, Regina concentrated with all her effort. She spread her arms. A veritable tornado of flame descended from the endless ceiling. Mary Margaret yelped and ducked for cover. The flames encircled the bower, but a moment later they, like every other bolt of energy Regina had sent their way, were absorbed.

Regina stamped her foot on the ground. Not only was her son under a curse, but the only person who could have helped had dropped off the radar entirely.

“Regina.” Mary Margaret’s voice was calm. Level. The sort of thing Regina herself had utilized in the days of the woman’s childhood—back when she’d still had a modicum of care in her to still act maternally.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Regina said, voice broken, her gaze downcast. “God, I can’t even say that you don’t know what it’s like because you do…because of me.” It was her Dark Curse that had separated Snow White and Prince Charming from Emma for all those years.

“At least we had the benefit of not knowing we were cursed,” Mary Margaret said bracingly. “Don’t you start falling into self-pity right now.”

“I don’t know what to do. I’ve thrown everything I have this thing—my strongest offensive spells. And it doesn’t even splinter.” Anise’s despair and wrath must have been great indeed, to have the curse hold so strong.

“We don’t need to destroy it.”

Regina glanced Mary Margaret’s way. She was regarding the bower furtively.

“What are you talking about?” Regina asked.

“We just need to see through.”

A moment of silence fell between them.

Then Regina said, “Son of a bitch. Of course. Of course I didn’t think of that.”

“Yours is more of a unsubtle approach. It’s fine.”

Regina could have laughed if she weren’t so tired. Instead, she rolled the sleeves of her bathrobe up and held her hands aloft once more. Power ebbed from her palms. She pictured the bower as a bank of mist—dense but not solid. It could be parted, like a curtain—and it would be.

She spread her arms apart. The bower suddenly turned translucent, the structure still faintly visible. But she could see through to the other side.

For one moment, her blood went cold as she saw Jack collapsed on ground strewn with gears, springs and clock hands.

Then she noticed the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

“He’s…asleep?” Regina could hardly believe her eyes.

“Of course he is,” Mary Margaret sighed, always the one to empathize with others. “He’s been awake since seven in the morning. And who knows what he’s doing on the other side.”

“Well, we have to wake him up!”

“We can’t.”

“Yes we absolutely can so! He can hear me from the inside of the bower.”

“But Regina…do you really want to?” Mary Margaret cast her an almost apologetic look. “It isn’t even the dawn of Christmas Eve yet. It was only a little before three when I snuck into your house. If Jack is tired, let him rest. He’ll have a better chance of breaking this curse if he’s at his full strength.”

It seemed such a stupidly mundane thing to expect. Yet even Regina felt the weight of sleep pressing in on her. If this was what she felt like after only a few hours disturbed rest and a handful of powerful spells, then Jack…

“I hate it when you do that,” Regina mumbled.

“What?”

“Make me feel compassion for people I really rather wouldn’t.”

“Yes.” Mary Margaret rolled her eyes. “It’s the worst possible evil known to anything. And if you hate me for that, you’ll loathe me for telling you I think you ought to get some shut eye as well. I’m not saying you should abandon anyone,” she said, rising her voice at Regina’s near-protect. “But I can keep watch.”

“You have children at home. And a husband who will likely come knocking at my door if he finds you missing.”

But the infuriating woman only smiled again. She dug into the pocket of her puffy jacket and pulled out her Smartphone.

“Luckily we’ve got other reinforcements.”

And so it came to pass that, less than a half an hour later, Regina was walking back up the glowing staircase—away from the bower where her son remained curse. Below, Mary Margaret was quickly filling both Emma and Killian—who’d tumbled into bed at the dowdy hour of nine-thirty—all about what had gone.

Regina’s guts were a knot of tension all the way up the staircase. This was so unlike her—putting trust in others. Certainly, she’d learned to extend the proverbial olive branch thanks to Emma and her nattering family. But she was so used to being in the thick of things—and usually conquering—that to be waylaid by something as trite as a need for sleep felt almost incredulous.

She had to trust that Emma and Captain Guy-Liner would wake her at the first sign of trouble. More than that, she had to trust that Jack would not only wake up in due time, but also break the curse before Christmas Day.

Through the brim of Jefferson’s Hat she emerged into her living room—still dark and relatively unscathed after the battle with the tin mice. The Hat continued to spin—as it would until Regina closed the portal.

She passed by the enormous Christmas tree, which stood almost in mockery of her present woe. Up the stairs, hands gliding over garland. Without Henry here, it all felt empty. Strange, she thought, that in doing her utmost to avoid the dread of Henry’s one day leaving her, the very thing had occurred.

Her bed felt heavenly, treacherously so. The mattress was softer than marshmallows on a hot cocoa. Even as she tried in vain to stay awake, her need to replenish proved more powerful than anything.


	11. Chapter 11

Guardians could dream. All living things had the propensity to do so. In need of sleep as he’d been, Jack floated in a world of inky darkness. Unlike the drowning, crushing blackness of that frigid lake, the shadows were soothing—almost like an embrace.

He thought how pleasant it was here, away from the strain of the curse. Forever seemed too short a time to linger somewhere this relaxing and devoid of strife.

Yet no sooner had he gotten used to his surroundings when they changed.

A speck of light in the middle of the darkness grew larger and larger. It took shape, and Jack found himself observing a scene in a resplendent palace. Turrets and columns of pink and white confection towered against a rosy sky. Snow fell in thick flakes like icing sugar.

Observing overhead, Jack saw a fleet of figures in the middle of a courtyard. Garbed in red and tall black hats, they were practicing some sort of military maneuver. At the head of them, a young man with pale skin and hair as red as flame oversaw the exercises, grim approval etched on his severely handsome face.

The scene changed—the same palace, indeed even the same moment. Upon a balcony looking down on the courtyard stood a woman of such ethereal beauty Jack feared a breeze would have dispersed her like the mists of morning. Her dress was a pink so pale it was nearly white, and made the dark caste of her skin all the more stark in contrast. Her thick hair was set in a stylish coif like a towering cloud atop her head. Nestled among the sugar-pink tresses was a jagged crown like a piece of broken candy glass. At her back stretched gossamer wings bejeweled with fragments of shining light like dewdrops.

The Sugar Plum Fairy.

Anise.

Yet it was her expression—of deepest devotion—that stole Jack’s attention after a mere seconds glass. She was watching the soldiers train below, her gaze fixed on the captain as if she wanted nothing more than to escape into a storybook with him.

Jack frowned. It was impossible to discern just how old Anise was—she could have been a young woman or a matron older than even Regina. But the look on her face of deepest besotted adoration seemed more appropriate for a schoolgirl.

He found it almost repulsive—not just that he was playing the voyeur in this dream which may not have been his own—but that someone with such power and terrible beauty could be so slovenly in love with another person—another person who would ultimately not return her feelings.

He wanted to scream at her—to tell her it was all false hope. But even as he opened his mouth, the scene shifted to a place all too familiar.

Regina’s living room.

A scant few nights ago, when he and Henry had found a stolen moment together. Henry, toasting a marshmallow in the roaring hearth, had been distracted. Too distracted to notice Jack watching him with glowing love like a beacon on his face.

“No,” Jack whispered. Ice stabbed between his ribs. He didn’t love like Anise. He truly loved Henry, he really did!

_But_ , said a sibilant voice that came from the darkness around him, _do you really think it’s enough? Or perhaps it’s too much. Just look at what this curse has done to the two of you. Do you really think it’s right to fall in love quite that much?_

The darkness overwhelmed. Jack felt the presence of true nightmare descend.

Just because it had taken him by surprise, didn’t mean he was going to let it conquer him. He knew better than to succumb to a tide of despair.

So he woke up.

He stared at the interlocking roof of the gazebo. The flames of two remaining portals continued to crackle either side of him. For a moment, he lay prone, relishing the sensation of having slept restfully.

Then he staggered to his feet, eyes wide as a frightened gazelle. How long had he been out? A glance towards the tree showed him that the penultimate layer of the Tin Soldier was pure silver. He had only two more to shed, and then he would be reunited with Henry.

“Regina!” Jack called out. “Regina, I’m sorry. I fell asleep. I think it was the Sandman, though.”

Silence met his words.

“Regina?”

“Uh…she’s not here, Jack.”

Jack frowned. “Emma?”

“Yes. Killian’s here, too.”

He heard Hook’s voice next. “Needed to bunk down, mate? Don’t worry. Happens to the best of us. Regina herself is even taking forty winks.”

“She’s asleep?”

“She needed it,” Emma said. “Don’t worry. We’re here. And we can see you. She cast some sort of spell on this place, and we can see through.”

Jack sighed. “How long was I out for?"

“It’s about seven in the morning,” Emma said.

Jack was horrified. “I’ve been asleep for five hours?”

“Simmer down, Jack,” Hook said. “You still have a full day ahead of you before…well, you’ve still got a full day.”

Jack took a breath and faced the yellow flames—the entrance to the Land of Tea. Already the bittersweet smell was making him feel soothed and relaxed.

“I’m going in now,” he said.

With that, he charged ahead—and promptly fell several feet through the air.

Jack landed with a grunt on something hard and jagged. His bearings returned he found himself on the edge of a many-shingled roof.

Very, very high up on a shingled roof of a structure shaped like a pagoda but somehow with less angles. Air whipped his bangs over his eyes, and he stared in shock at the distant ground below.

After swallowing down great gulps of breath, he slowly righted himself. The sky around was the pale yellow of dusk.

He’d expected to find The Land of Tea like the other realms—devastated and broken to some capacity. But from his vantage point on the edge of this castle or temple, all seemed relatively whole and canny. Tall green stalks swayed in the wind around the spot upon which he stood.

With a frown, Jack took to the air. He first did a full circle of the temple. While the growths of vines and dense cobwebs told of long abandonment, the splendid building stood remarkably preserved.

The only odd thing appeared to be the numerous mannequins around the place. All were people-sized, and dressed in lurid clothes, their faces cast downward.

Jack circled low, landing on an arched bridge that spanned a large swathe of bare land like a gulch. Several statues stood on the planks, each staring in various directions.

Recalling the ghouls in The Land of Coffee, Jack was hesitant to approach lest the statues attack. But they didn’t so much as tremble as he neared one—a simple edifice of what appeared to be a young woman in simple, peasant clothes.

Jack approached the statue slowly. He bent his head, the better to see the face. A shock of revulsion made him gasp, but he stood his ground.

The woman’s face was that of a painted China doll’s, with features painted in vibrant, vivid strokes. The expression she wore was one of dissonant joy. In this silence, with so many other dolls around, it was almost frightening.

Cautious, Jack tapped the doll on the shoulder. But she did not move.

He looked round at the others on the bridge, waiting for one of them to turn their head and look him in the face.

But all here was still and silent. Frozen in delicate porcelain as if waiting for something that would never come.

Jack swallowed down his dread.

He would find out what happened to these people. But first he had to attend to the task issued him by the Footmice.

“ _A phial filled where the tea rivers tear_ ,” he said to himself. “Tear…that’s either where the rivers converge or separate.”

He looked over the edge of the bridge, grimacing. Because the very nature of the curse was a challenge, he knew it wouldn’t be easy as all that to spot the confluence of the tea rivers. As such, the sight of the dry, bare riverbed didn’t shock him quite as much as it might have.

Shaking his head, he flew upwards once more—higher than he even had when he’d been luring the Roc.

Below him, The Land of Tea looked almost like a thing of life. There were many towns, villages and even a large city surrounded by a red wall. Stalks gave the whole vista a wash of verdant green that suggested life. But there was no water, nor tea, nor life-giving liquid of any kind. Instead, the places where such things might have been were long, winding stretches of earthy brown.

Life hadn’t ceased here as it had in The Land of Chocolate, nor had it been twisted as it had in The Land of Coffee. It seemed as if The Land of Tea had ground to a halt with the loss of its rivers, streams and lakes.

Maybe the dolls down below had chosen to freeze to cope with the curse? Or maybe the curse had turned them all into the silent, masked effigies.

Jack knew enough about geography that he made, once more, for the mountains. These, he saw, were far taller and more jagged than those in The Land of Coffee. He supposed that the realms were separated by a whole system of tall, jagged peaks.

Far easier to find than anything was the supposed spot where the rivers tore. In this case, it was a large confluence central in the very city where Jack had entered this silent, still realm. Four broad rivers, now barer than a tree in midwinter, flowed into the watershed from many smaller rivers and streams around the land.

Freshwater had its source in glaciers. Water from the mountains flowed downwards. It would be easier for him to divert whatever moisture existed in the peaks of those massive mountains to flow through The Land of Tea once more.

There was only one thing standing in his way, and he found it before he’d even neared the mountain range.

Not so much as a speck of snow was to be found on even the highest peak.

“Oh, hell no,” Jack muttered to himself. At this point, he supposed he could expect help from one of the other Guardians. But he wasn’t going to hold his breath—not when he himself could easily solve this problem. Ice, cold and moisture were his elements, and if Anise thought her curse that indomitable, then she’d never counted on crossing paths with Jack Frost of the Guardians of Childhood.

He zoomed through gullies and passes, up cliff faces and around jagged spires. His gaze noted every curving valley and steep slope.

At last, he came to a large bowl in the mountains. Once, he was sure of it, this had been the place where the waters in this land flower. After the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy, it was a barren valley of rock.

Jack concentrated. He reached within and without for the very spirit of cold. It came to him, pulled from the air like a memory, spiraling around him and through his body. Greater than that vein of frost still lacing his heart, it gathered like an Arctic cold front. It towered around him and above him, stewing and growing thick as a hurricane.

He was the very spirit of cold.

With a mere thought, he pushed all the power of winter outward.

Fast as flash-freezing, a jagged ridge of ice grew in the center of the valley. Its edges spread outwards. It’s apex grew higher and higher, and its mass condensed thick as the mountains around it. And still Jack continued to push as much of the power out of himself as he could.

Higher and higher the glacier grew. Eventually it took the space of the entire valley, its sharp and sloping edges shimmering in the mellow sunlight.

Weary, Jack let his arms fall. He floated downwards, landing on a rocky outcropping at the edge of the valley. He breathed in and out, feeling as if he’d been stampeded by a herd of bulls. Sleep called to him again, but he fought against it.

He’d had enough sleep when he’d been back in Fritz’s Bower.

As it stood, nobody was coming to help him—not that he’d really expected them too. As mighty as the Guardians were, he saw what plagued The Land of Tea as his own to heal.

He took to the air again, flying to the mouth of the pass from whence he’d ascended.

He looked back at the massive glacier, smirked, and held up a single finger.

“Melt,” he said.

And in one massive burst, the glacier turned to water

Jack had never flown faster in his life. He led the torrential cascade of water down slopes, cliff sides and through valleys deeper than that which he’d grown the glacier in. Lakes, rivers and streams formed in places where the land had sunk inwards. They would, he knew, go on to water even more parts of this land, but his primary concern was the main tumble of water stampeding behind him.

He flew over a large edge of rock and riverbed. The water burst behind him, tumbling downwards in a magnificent fall. Jack turned and watched it is it continued to cascade earthwards. Water flowed among the broad bed below and raced downwards through the formerly dry track. It reached the central confluence, and suddenly split—first into one separate river and then into two, followed by a third, until finally, four new mighty rivers roared through The Land of Tea.

Not loathe to rest, Jack rocketed back towards the central valley at the top of the mountains. He soared across the valley, and the rapidly melting remnants of the glacier—a solid block four times the size of the grandest palace—froze once more. Here it would remain, watering The Land of Tea.

Once more exhausted, Jack settled onto the edge of the valley, breathing hard.

“Bravo,” said a resonant, sweet voice at his ear.

Jack gasped, and whipped his head around.

A woman, tall and limber but with evident strength, was sitting at his side as if she’d always been there. From feet to head she was adorned in what appeared to be a suit of green and blue scales. A set of blue-green wings sprouted from her shoulder blades and behind her hips.

She regarded the glacier with impassive, somewhat amused golden eyes ringed with rosy pink powder.

Jack swallowed back his shock.

“I didn’t think anyone else would be here,” he said.

“Why in the world wouldn’t we be? We’ve been with you the whole time. We always have.”

“Yes, but this seemed so much easier than the other lands.”

Toothiana arched a fine, thin eyebrow.

“If that was what you called easy, then I’d hate to see you do something difficult. I’m quite impressed with you Jack. Although there’s still something missing.”

Frowning, Jack rose on aching legs.

“Missing? But the rivers…they’re back now, aren’t they?”

Toothiana nodded. “Yes, I suppose so. But the land itself still isn’t healed.”

She stood—a head taller than Jack—and beat her broad wings. She flew upwards, and Jack followed suit, curious and somewhat cowed.

She led him back towards the great waterfall. There below the rivers now rushed with a renewed vengeance. They were clear and blue, all four of them healthier than even most bodies of water back in Henry’s world.

“I don’t understand,” Jack said. “What am I missing?”

“This place has forgotten how to be,” Toothiana said sadly. She flew downwards, graceful and swan-like despite her more tropical appearance. Jack trailed after her, confused and slightly upset. He thought he’d done the right thing in forming the glacier.

Toothiana landed at the edge of a large lake—the conflux of the mighty river before it separated.

“This river surges with water of a different world,” Toothiana said. “And the people here are frozen, heads downcast, trying to figure out what they’ve lost. This place was cursed with losing itself. So though the rivers flow—thanks to your monumental efforts—they don’t remember how to be the rivers they once were.”

Jack’s shoulders fell in defeat. “Do rivers even have memories?”

Toothiana cast Jack a reproachful look. “Everything has memories, Jack. Lands need hope to renew after devastation. All the lives needs sleep so it can dream. And each blade of grass and speck of dirt knows from where it came.” She skimmed the surface of the water with a graceful hand. “Water remembers, Jack. This water needs to remember how to give life.”

Jack felt a small tug in the back of his mouth. Surprised, he parted his lips wide. The sensation spread, focused on four corners behind his molar teeth. One after the other, four things popped, quite painlessly, out of his gums. He stared, jaw hanging open, as four pearly white teeth floated over his tongue and into Toothiana’s waiting palm.

Gently closing his mouth, Jack felt around his gums with his tongue.

“You’re quite fortunate,” Toothiana said with the ghost of a smile. “Most people in the realm you live in would have to suffer the hands of the dentist to get their wisdom teeth removed.”

Toothiana plunged her hand into the water. A white glow gleamed from beneath the flowing surface. Then it split into four separate pieces—one for each of Jack’s magically extracted teeth.

One for each of the Land of Tea’s four mighty rivers.

“Come.” Toothiana glided into the air. “See what happens now.”

Jack followed. They were less than a hundred feet from the ground when he saw the change overcoming the waters. Though they flowed in clear blue from their new source at the mountains, once they split, their hues changed. One river was a deep, dark ochre; the other a pale honey amber. The third was a soft shade of green, and the fourth a glowing burgundy.

“Four rivers of tea!” Jack gasped. “Of course!” As he spoke, he felt a change in the atmosphere—a sort of coalescing of energy. The wind picked up, and the rivers flowed with a vengeance.

Toothiana led Jack back to the ground, next to the confluence of the new rivers.

“I believe you have a task here,” she said softly.

“Right.” Jack conjured a phial of solid ice. He knelt by the edge of the conflux, and filled the phial full. Stoppering it, he made to stand, and then froze.

He and Toothiana were being watched.

Several figures were peering at them from a cluster of trees. They still had painted faces of pearly porcelain, but their clothes were more rustic than the finery of the city.

A few of them cocked their heads, pausing just shy of leaving the trees.

Jack turned to Toothiana. “Is this what they’ve always been like?”

“Oh no,” she said. “They simply have so much to remember. But in time, they will. Only if you succeed in your endeavor, that is.”

Jack offered a small smile to one of the figures, but they made no visible response.

“You must go now,” Toothiana said to Jack.

“I have a full day ahead of me.”

“You’ve been here for some hours, Jack. Time even forgot itself in this place, and you’ve still one task to complete.”

Jack grimaced.

“How do I get out of here?”

Toothiana merely smiled. “You have to remember the way, of course.”


	12. Chapter 12

Emma and Hook had waited for some time after Jack disappeared. Both wouldn’t admit to being on edge, but they knew one another so well that each could see it in the other’s eyes.

For her part, Emma did her best to keep her eyes fixed on the tree in the middle of the bower. She’d studied the bizarre casing that was keeping her son from her, as if hoping she could crack it by sheer willpower.

But this, she knew, was not her task.

It was Jack’s.

“This is so like my family,” Emma sighed after several hours had elapsed. Hook had settled onto the strange ground outside the bower, dozing off every once in a while out of sheer boredom.

Hook grunted himself awake. “Sorry love. What’s that?”

“Curses and things. Seeking them out instead of doing things the easy why.” She sank to the ground next to Hook. Immediately he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her close.

“Way I heard it, young Jack tried the easy way multiple times. Still didn’t do much.”

“I suppose so,” Emma sighed. “But going to Zelena to get a curse put on him just so he could prove a point? It’s the kind of thing Rumpelstiltskin would have done.”

“It’s the kind of thing Henry’s mum would do,” Hook replied with a grin.

Emma glared at him, but Hook was never one to back down.

“Hey, nobody made you become the Dark One. You did that because you thought it was the right thing to do. Just like Henry thought he had no other choice. And maybe he didn’t. God only knows how pig-headed Regina is.”

Emma stared into the bower. It was likely nearing six in the morning, and Jack still hadn’t returned. If he failed, then she had no idea what she or anyone else could do. But hers was a family who loved fiercely—often to their own detriment. They would find a way because that’s what they always did.

Still…

“Bit dangerous if you ask me,” Hook said after a moment.

“What do you mean?”

Hook shrugged. “Just the lengths people go to. You going to Hades for me; taking on the power of the Dark One. Even Regina casting that curse was over a broken heart. Love’s dangerous, love. One thing I’ve learned in all this is that there’s no need for the extravagance. It’s enough to love someone, isn’t it?”

Emma smiled, and kissed him softly. “You know, it isn’t just the dashing looks,” she sighed, snuggling closer. “There’s a big, sexy brain beneath all your rakish good looks.”

“Well, thank you, love. That’s the best Christmas present I’ve ever received.”

They lapsed into silence, Emma staring at the bower and mulling over what Hook had said.

Several moments later with a rush of flame and crunch of footsteps, Jack reappeared in the middle of the bower. Both Hook and Emma scrambled to their feet, relief rushing through them.

“Jack!” Emma cried. “Did you—

“I did it,” Jack said, breathless as he made for the third Footman. “I lost track of time, but I did it.” He placed something in the tin creature’s hand. With a rumble, the next layer of the statue surrounding Henry gave way.

Emma and Jack both gasped. Henry was fully visible now—ostensibly asleep. But it looked as if black, metallic vines around crisscrossing his legs, arms, chest and face—including his lips.

“It’s the tree,” Jack said after a moment’s brief inspection. “I have to complete the final task, and then it’ll let him go. What time is it?”

“Morning,” Emma said, looking at her phone. “Scratch that—six in the morning.”

Jack cursed. “I was in The Land of Tea longer than I thought.”

“You still have the full day,” Hook reminded him gently. “And there’s only one task left. Don’t worry, lad—it’ll be simple for you.

Jack nodded, and grimly faced the last fireplace. He hesitated for a moment, staring into the pink flames.

“What’s wrong?” Emma asked, trying not to sound too impatient.

“It’s just the rhyme,” Jack said. “…stolen beauty of the Sugar Queen…I don’t know how I’m supposed to get Anise’s beauty.”

Hook shrugged—as if it were the most obvious solution in the world. “You could always cut her face off.”

“Killian!” Emma gasped.

“What? Doesn’t sound like this bird did this place much good, anyway.”

Jack straightened. “I’ll figure it out.”

Emma nodded. “I know you will, Jack. But hurry.”

Without another word, Jack disappeared into the fire between the archways. Emma and Killian watched him go, nothing left to do but wait for his return.


	13. Chapter 13

The pink flames did not disappear once Jack stepped through them. He hovered in a vista of flickering fire, confused and lost. Had something happened to the portal? The thought of coming this far only to tumble at the end made his pulse beat with panic.

But all his worries proved for not.

A figure emerged from thin air.

Jack had encountered so many of his friends in The Land of Sweets that it shouldn’t have surprised him to see this particular Guardian here. That it was Christmas Eve was only more appropriate.

Still, he couldn’t help but rush towards the solid, towering form of Nicholas St. North.

North’s kind face crinkled in delight as he return Jack’s embrace.

“Ah Jack, my friend,” North sighed, holding Jack at arm’s length to get a better look at him. “You’ve grown so since last we met.”

“It’s only been a few years,” Jack said.

But North’s smile had disappeared somewhat. His eyes fell on Jack’s chest, and he arched his thick, dark eyebrows.

“Curious,” he said to himself. “But not altogether unexpected.”

Unconsciously, Jack rubbed a fist over his heart.

“Are you here to tell me something?” Jack said. “Or is the portal actually broken?”

“Oh, it isn’t broken,” North said. “I wanted to intercede on both your half and the part of The Sugar Plum Fairy.”

Jack furrowed his brows. “Anise? Why would you want to help her after what she did to this place? To Clara and Fritz and all the other people she used to be queen of?”

North sighed.

“You’re furious at her,” he said. “I understand. But remember that her only crime before Regina’s duplicity was that she loved that young man too much.”

“Too much?” Jack thought of Anise’s expression in his dream—or had it even been his dream? Perhaps he’d been lost in Anise’s dream—her memories and bitterest regrets. He thought of the utterly besotted way she’d stared at Fritz, and how borderline revolting he’d found it.

“Oh yes,” North nodded. “It is entirely possible to love too much. Look at what the boy you love did in the name of it.”

Jack scowled. “Henry only wanted to make Regina see a point!” Yet even as he spoke, he realized how utterly stupid it sounded. Could Henry not have simply been firm with his mother?

At once, Jack’s defensive deflated.

North smiled kindly. “There is nothing to be done about it now. And if it hadn’t been for Henry’s actions, this land would have remained in its accursed state of echoing. You have utilized a good deal of power beyond that of magic to help heal this place. But going on from here, you must understand who Anise was before she fell to cold, unbending fury.”

Something stirred in Jack’s heart—not dread or hopelessness or anger. It was an uncomfortable feeling, one that had stayed his hand in his battle with Pitch oh so long ago—a feeling that made him see just why it was Regina chose to be so overprotective of her only son.

“You will succeed,” North said, turning and walking away into the fiery vista. “But not in the way you think.”

Jack opened his mouth to respond, but North had already disappeared. And so had the fire. Where once had been shimmering tendrils of flame was a very familiar sight indeed. Jack stood in the grand, candied courtyard from the dreamspace. The columns were constructed of dense peppermint sticks; turrets and arches were bedecked in thousands of hard candy shingles. Frosting friezes spanned the tops of walls made of stacks bricks of sugar cubes. All around was bright shades of pink, minty green, candy blue and white.

But as majestic as the candy palace was, it held a shadow of decay and utter despair. The signs of dereliction were all over the place—from the dust an inch thick on the ground, to the cobwebs spanning over almost every visible surface. Christmas itself had gone to ruin in this place, and it made Jack’s very breath run ragged.

He walked among the thick dust, looking around for some sign of life. He felt as if he were back in The Land of Chocolate. Only here he didn’t have the sense of utter desolation. There was something here—he could sense it. A fragment of life, echoing from some long distant point in an ancient past.

He knew where he would find it—or rather, her. It was the only place that made any semblance of sense in Jack’s mind. He mounted a grand sweeping staircase from the courtyard and slipped through an open archway. Like as not I had been a massive doorway into the castle at some point, but the door had long since vanished.

Jack’s footfalls, once muffled by the dust, echoed inside the sugary palace. They very sound of them bouncing from walls and off columns sounded an affront to the deathly quiet.

Still, he continued to walk, down a long corridor replete with spider webs and broken paintings obscured by the ages.

He found himself in the throne room. At the very end of the grand hall, he saw the seat of power itself, and the being sitting upon it. Behind her spanned a curtain of white from floor to ceiling, looking more like a veil between worlds.

Jack paused, staring at the figure of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Her dress was moth eaten, and her wings withered. The candied crown still sat atop her hair, now faded from its original hue. She sat with one elbow propped on the arm of her throne, head resting against her fist.

Anise could have been sleeping. Even in her repose, she looked utterly pitiable and terrible. Jack stood still as ice, wondering how on earth he was to steal her beauty. North had told him that this was a task he wouldn’t complete in any sort of conventional way. But conventional for Jack Frost differed from the definition of others. He’d achieved the prior tasks through the help of his fellow Guardians, and done so rather non-violently.

To steal beauty from someone so faded? Certainly Anise had vestiges of her good looks. Age had touched her like the first frost covering a tiger lily—her beauty still evident but through a lens.

How was he to do this? Cut off her head? The thought made Jack’s stomach twist. He’d never been one for acts of violence before. Part of him cursed Henry for having put him in this situation to begin with. But he had to do this—not just for Henry, and not just for the Land of Sweets, but for Anise herself. He recalled the nauseating way she’d regarded Fritz, with blind devotion beyond rationality. And now here she remained, an aging thing, queen of a kingdom long run to ruin.

She needed to be freed.

Jack’s entire body went tense. He was going to step forward, he was going to do this—to kill Anise and take her beauty back to the bower.

All at once, fluid as creamer in coffee, Anise stirred. She looked up, and Jack remained rooted to the spot.

Her eyes, pink and bright, stared at him with weary interest. Slowly, the very age of her evident in how she moved, she rose from her throne. The white curtain behind her fell away, and Jack saw it wasn’t a curtain at all, but the length Anise’s hair had grown to over the ages.

“A visitor,” she said, her voice ragged as she walked towards him. Despite his shock, Jack did not feel at all frightened of her. For her part, Anise didn’t even look as if she were annoyed by his presence or his interference in her curse.

“Have you come to kill me, handsome little thing?” She walked in a slow circle around him, her lengths of hair following her like a ruined bridal train. “If you have, get it over with. I’m more than ready.”

Jack swallowed.

“I haven’t anything to do it with,” Jack said. “I didn’t come here to kill you.”

“But you did come.” Her wings twitched, but did not rise. She drew closer, regarding him with mild amusements. “And you needn’t bring a weapon. There’s many ways to take a life that need neither blade nor bayonet.” Her eyes focused on his chest. “Your blood flows with frost. Winter. Who are you, if you aren’t here to take my life?”

“Jack Frost,” Jack said.

Anise paused. “Ah. A spirit of ice. Freeze me, then. Create a blade of frost and stab me in the heart. I’m more than ready.”

“No,” Jack shook his head. “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here for your beauty.”

Anise laughed then. If she herself was a creature who only had the remnant of life, beauty and vitality, then her laugh was a facsimile of mirth. Shrill, loud and piercing, it made the hairs on Jack’s arms stand on end.

“My beauty?” And to Jack’s surprise, she covered her face with one hand and pulled it outward. Her frame hunched; her hair turned from white to grey; creases lined her face and she stared at Jack from behind eyes almost yellow. She held out her hand, producing a swirling light the color of candy floss.

“Take it,” she croaked. “My beauty? What need do I have for beauty here? What would it even matter, when there’s nothing left to show it to in this kingdom! It lingers on. I will linger on. Caged in my regret.” She thrust the light under Jack’s nose. “Take it and go.”

Jack anticipated some sort of trick. Nevertheless, he accepted the light, and took it from Anise without incident.

The disgraced queen turned. With painful slowness, she shuffled back towards her throne.

Jack saw her in his mind’s eye as she would be from hereon—alone. To be trapped with the very memory of what she had wrought upon her once vibrant kingdom. Alone with no prospect but to stew on how she’d been the cause of her love’s demise. Alone with the memory that she’d let herself be so engulfed by a man who had never loved her in return.

He turned and made to leave. It would be so easy—to return to Fritz’s Bower and leave the final gift with the Footman.

But something stayed him.

He looked back at the staggering form of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

“I think I’ll stay,” Jack said, and he really didn’t know what had made him say it at all.

Anise stilled. She stood somewhat taller, but did not turn around.

“What?”

“I said, I think I’ll stay.” Jack gestured, the queen’s beauty still grasped between his fingers. “I’m a Guardian. An Immortal. I can be here as long as I want without time ravaging me.”

“But then your lover will linger, too,” Anise said, still not turning around.

Jack shrugged. “Henry was the whole cause of my being here in his foolishness. It’s the price he’ll pay. Knowing him, he’d follow me to Hades if it meant being with me.”

Silence consumed the air between them.

Then Anise began to laugh—a wheezing thing that soon grew rich and bombastic.

She turned with sudden agility. The great train of her grey hair turned a brilliant shade of white and wrapped her round like a chrysalis. A moment later, the cocoon burst into a bright shimmering light of pink and minty green and sky blue and lily-orange.

Where once had been a crone stood a proud woman—not the shell of the thing she’d once been, but a mighty queen in her prime. Her wings carried her to the ceiling. Her laughter echoed in Jack’s ears like the pealing of a Christmas bell.

She swooped downwards, and landed in front of him. Her lips were quirked in a triumphant smirk. Jack blinked, and looked round. All vestiges of ruination had vanished from the palace. The smell of dust and mildew had given way to a sweet scent of sugar.

“I…I…” Jack stammered, not knowing what to say.

Anise only laughed once again. “Handsome you may be, but obviously not articulate.”

“I don’t understand! Were you always like this underneath it all?”

“No, Jack Frost. Only waiting.” She prodded his chest. “Not all ice in those veins, it would seem.”

Jack looked at his hand. Anise’s beauty—or whatever it was—was still there. Yet here in front of him stood a woman so unalike to the things he’d witnessed before as summer was from winter.

“You were willing to risk your love for someone you didn’t even know,” Anise said. “Someone like me, with many dark spots on her own heart.”

“Wait a minute—

“Yes, Jack.” She gestured, and suddenly they were standing on a grand balcony overlooking the Land of Candy. It appeared, now, much as it had before, but there was s sense of life to it. All that had once been ruined was now whole.

“I broke the curse,” Jack whispered, hardly daring to believe it. “The Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy…it wasn’t just something that happened to Henry it was on the whole land and I—

“Yes,” Anise sighed. “You did. All of my realms…it will take time. But they will ebb with life again, and all because of you.”

Once more, Jack examined the glowing orb of Anise’s beauty.

“It will work,” Anise said gently. “It’s quite impossible to be the thief of another’s beauty. It isn’t a thing you keep in a box or a piece you break from a flower.”

“What’ll happen to you?”

Anise stared at the rosy sky. “I will try to be the queen this land needed all that time ago. Perhaps this time I shall be wiser than to be blinded by my heart. And you, Jack Frost, ought to do similarly.”

Jack hung his head. Of course, he’d been entertaining such notions ever since he’d fallen into Anise’s dream.

“It won’t be as painful as all that,” Anise said. “A moment of it is a worth a lifetime of delight.”

Jack nodded. “You’re right.” He looked around. “How do I get back to the bower?”

Anise smiled. “Like this.”

She tapped him on the forehead.

Jack felt himself flung violently backward. Just as he opened his mouth to scream, he found himself surrounded by the archways once more.

“Jack!?” Emma’s voice reached him from outside the bower.

Jack didn’t respond. He almost tripped over his own feet hurrying towards the fourth and final Footman. He placed Anise’s shimmering beauty into the tinny hands of the statue.

A shrill grinding of metalworks made him whirl around. He saw the tendrils of the tree giving way from Henry’s body. Jack raced across the strewn and littered ground, and reached the tree in enough time to catch Henry as he fell.

“Jack!” Regina’s voice this time. She must have woken up and come down some time ago.

“I’m here,” Jack said breathlessly. Henry looked unscathed, but did not stir. “He’s asleep,” Jack called to the others.

He heard Regina give a scoff of disgust. “True Love’s Kiss, idiot.”

Jack rolled his eyes. Of course. He’d almost forgotten about the crux of the issue.

He smoothed Henry’s bangs from his forehead. Then he softly brushed his lips against Henry’s.

A moment later, Henry stirred in his arms.

His eyes opened, and he smiled softly at Jack.

“I know you’d rescue me,” he said.

Jack inhaled, and mustered a smile. “Of course. Let’s get out of here, yeah?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes my little holiday present for 2020. Hope you've enjoyed reading this and I wish you and yours a very happy holiday season!

Christmas night found Regina hurrying around her home. Whatever domestic goddesses set to the contrary, the big event was always cause for some duress. Even having magic only went so far organizing a dinner for herself and several other families.

Henry had spent the prior day asleep, and then getting acclimated to life post-curse. To Regina’s surprise, Jack hadn’t been keen on spending too much time with him—mostly because he’d been left exhausted from his quest in the Land of Sweets—and also from having to recount his adventure there at least three times.

But soon there would be peace in her household. Everyone would sit down, enjoy some turkey and cranberry sauce, and then, hopefully, leave her to enjoy the New Year in peace.

She bustled through the living room where the extended Charming-Swan-Joneses were having a filial tete-a-tete.

“Have any of you seen Henry?” She asked.

“Jack took him outside for a stroll,” Mary Margaret said.

Regina narrowed her eyes. It had stopped snowing, praise be, but it was still colder than a witches…well, colder than ought to be allowed.

It was just like Jack, Regina thought as she headed for the back door to the garden. Just because he could tolerate Arctic temperatures didn’t mean others could. Who did he think he was, anyway? He’d only done what he was meant to do in rescuing Henry from the Curse of the Sugar Plum Fairy. And so what if he’d broken the curse in its entirety? In this family tree, curse-breaking was as prerequisite as curse-making.

Regina paused before opening the door. She chastised herself for thinking of Jack in terms of “this family.” Henry had been completely foolhardy in his efforts to get Regina to see things his way. She was, of course, stewing over a maternal tirade, but it would wait until the day after Christmas.

She stepped outside, shivering as the wintry air stung her skin. She was just about to raise her voice to holler after the two boys when she heard a sound that made her blood run cold.

Henry speaking, his voice thick with tears.

“Are you saying you’re going to leave me?”

Moving on quiet feet, Regina hurried towards the direction the voice was coming from—around the other side of the house near the greenhouse. She flattened herself against the siding, listening intently.

If Jack Frost as thinking of causing Henry emotional turmoil…

“No,” Jack said, his voice even. “I’m not saying that at all.”

“Then why did you bring all this up?!” Regina heard something of her own passionate energy in her son’s appeal—and she find herself not liking it one little bit.

Jack sighed. “Henry, people can be in love and have arguments and disagreements without it being cause of a tragedy.”

Regina blinked, impressed at the maturity in Jack’s perspective. Still, she waited, now listening because she wanted to see how this would play out before blowing the frosty bastard to smithereens.

“I was only thinking about you,” Henry went out, his voice thick with tears—tears far too petulant for Regina’s peace of mind.

“You probably were, but you were also thinking about yourself. Henry, nothing was stopping you from simply taking your mom aside and being firm with her. Nothing was stopping me either. I know we’ve tried before, but we should have just kept on trying.”

“You wouldn’t have saved The Land of Sweets,” Henry whispered.

“True,” Jack said. “But that wasn’t what was on your mind when you went ahead and pulled me into a dangerous plan that could have ended very, very badly.”

Jack’s tone took an edge. Suddenly Regina pictured him less as a genial spirit creating frosty skating rinks for little kids and more as a force with the power to turn commandeer the seasons if he so chose.

“I love you,” Jack went on. “Henry, I really do. But you have no right to go making me part of something without asking my permission. You don’t have any right to do that to the people who love you, either. Yes, I saved you. Yes, I broke the curse. But that only happened because you disregarded how I would have felt about you going on and cursing yourself.”

Henry had started to sob, but Regina wasn’t moved at all. She, in fact, was silently rooting for Jack to go on, mostly because she would never have been able to have this conversation with Henry herself.

“Don’t you ever—ever—do something like that to me again. Do not ever give me reason to be so damn scared for you. Do you understand me?”

After a few pitiful gulps, Regina heard Henry say, “I won’t. Ever. I’m so sorry, Jack.”

Footsteps crunched through the snow. Regina narrowed her eyes, and peered around the corner. Jack and Henry were embracing now, and she felt rather ashamed of herself for having intruded.

A moment later, she ducked behind a nearby dead tub of shrubbery as Henry, head bowed, hurried back down the garden path to the back door.

Only when she heard the door shut did Regina right herself. Smoothing the front of her party dress, she walked towards the greenhouse.

Jack was standing there, staring up at the night sky.

He turned his head to look at Regina. To his credit, he didn’t look remotely cowed by her.

Regina smiled—the first smile she’d ever given him.

“I just wanted to let you know,” she said, “that the family’s sitting down to Christmas dinner in a few minutes.”

Jack nodded. “That’ll be cozy.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me say it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I said the family is sitting down for Christmas dinner, Jack.” She sighed, shook her head in an admission of defeat, and said, “In case you’ve got an icicle in your ears, that means you too.”

Jack stared at her, his eyes bright with disbelief. And then he smiled, wide and hopeful like a little kid on Christmas morning.

“Thank you, Regina.”

Regina nodded.

“Merry Christmas, Jack Frost. Welcome to the family.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be updating this very frequently, as it's already a complete story in need of editing.


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